The Netherlands is set to hand back hundreds of precious artefacts taken from Indonesia and Sri Lanka during its colonial period.

Objects to be returned include a gem-encrusted bronze cannon and a looted cache of jewels from the “Lombok treasure”.

A report had urged the government to return items if countries request them.
The agreed restitution comes as the Netherlands increasingly confronts its colonial past.

Other countries have also began returning precious looted artefacts in recent years . Notable examples include British and German museums signing over some of the so-called Benin Bronzes stolen from Nigeria during a large-scale 1897 British military expedition.

“[This is] the first time that we are returning objects that should never have been in the Netherlands,” Culture Minister Gunay Uslu said.

“But we are not just returning objects. We are actually starting a period in which we are more intensively cooperating with Indonesia and Sri Lanka.”

Among the collections to be handed back to Indonesia is the so called “Lombok treasure” – a trove of jewels, precious stones, gold and silver which was looted by the Dutch colonial army from a royal palace on Indonesia’s Lombok island in 1894.