Sweden is handing back dozens of looted cultural objects to Nigeria and Bolivia, in one of the largest repatriation efforts the country has ever undertaken. The Swedish government confirmed it will return 40 sacred artefacts from the Kingdom of Benin to Nigeria, alongside 77 items belonging to Bolivia's Kallawaya people, including human remains.

A delegation from the Benin Palace was expected to receive the Nigerian objects in Lagos. Oba Ewuare II, the monarch of Benin, described the handover as the result of years of sustained advocacy, recalling that he had pressed the case during his own diplomatic postings to Scandinavian countries. The Oba announced the return on November 4, while receiving the chairman of Nigeria's drug enforcement agency, and the palace delegation in Lagos was led by Frank Irabor, secretary to the Benin Traditional Council. The objects come from the collections of Sweden's National Museums of World Culture, an institution that cares for almost half a million objects from around the world.

The return carries particular weight because of the scale of the original loss. British forces seized roughly 5,000 royal and religious objects from the Kingdom of Benin in 1897 during a punitive expedition through what is now Nigeria, and the bronzes have since been scattered across museums in Europe and North America. Sweden's transfer is among the biggest single returns of these works to date.

The Bolivian items, including human remains, will go to the Archaeological Museum in La Paz. Together, the two handovers show how restitution has moved from isolated gestures to coordinated government policy, with former colonial-era holdings now being returned in batches rather than one object at a time.