Three times a year, a fortress within the remote mountainside of a Norwegian island opens its doors to a select few. Such infrequency is intentional. The Svalbard Global Seed Vault preserves more than 1.

A "doomsday" vault storing food crop seeds from around the world in man-made caves on a remote Norwegian Arctic island will receive more than 14,000 new samples on Tuesday, a custodian of the facility said.

Sudan, a country bordering Egypt in northeast Africa has decided to send crop samples to the "doomsday" vault in a remote Norwegian island in the Arctic. These genetic samples are of food crops seeds.

File photo taken on June 19, 2024 shows the entrance of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Longyearbyen, Norway. A total of 14,000 seed samples from 21 gene banks are being deposited this week in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, the Norwegian government announced on Feb. 26, 2025. (Xinhua/Zhang Yuliang)