Looted Drum

 Ivory Coast receives sacred talking drum looted during colonial era from France.

A sacred drum looted by French forces during its colonial rule in Ivory Coast has been returned to the country, more than a century after it was taken.

‎The drum was seized by colonial authorities in 1916 before being taken to France in 1929, where it was put on display at the Trocadéro Museum and later at the Quai Branly Museum in Paris.

The Djidji Ayôkwé (Panther Lion), as the talking drum is called, was welcomed home by members of the Ebrié community, its original owners.

It arrived aboard a specially chartered plane but was not removed from its large wooden crate marked "fragile".

A traditional group of dancers and several local chiefs were at Abidjan International Airport to receive it.

 It is more than three metres (10 feet) long weighing about 430kg and it is carved from iroko wood.

Director of the Museum of Civilizations in Abidjan, Francis Tagro said the drum would be exhibited "in a place of honour in the heart of the national museum".

The return is part of a wider French effort to repatriate African cultural artefacts, a process which began in 2017.