Five days after the looting of Malawi National Museum (MNM), the town inhabitants succeeded in recovering two statuettes depicting the ancient Egyptian god of fortune, Osiris.

The MNM was looted on Wednesday during violence that broke out among pro-Morsi protesters in the Upper Egyptian city of Al-Minya, after the break-up of pro-Morsi sit-ins in Rabaa Al-Adawiya square in Nasr City and Al-Nahda Square in Giza.

According to the web site Egypt’s Heritage Task Force, which published the list of the missing artefacts, the statuettes were handed over to the MNM and sent to Al-Ashmounein storage in Al-Minya for restoration.

Minister of State of Antiquities Mohamed Ibrahim told Ahram Online that Malawi residents responded to the call launched by the ministry asking them to hand over any of the MNM artefacts to the museum’s curator without risk of legal measures being taken against anyone.

He also promised to reward the person who recovered both statuettes with an amount of money for his honesty and cooperation with the ministry in helping retrieve artefacts crucial to Egypt’s heritage.