The artifacts, known as the Benin Bronzes and mostly housed in a museum in Leiden, were looted in the late 19th century by British soldiers from what is now Nigeria.

The Netherlands says it will return more than 100 Benin Bronzes that British troops looted from Nigeria in the late 19th Century and which ended up in a Dutch museum. Thousands of these culturally significant sculptures and carvings were stolen during the violent destruction of Benin City, in modern-day Nigeria's Edo state, in 1897.