Landslide kills more than 1,000 in Sudan’s Darfur region, armed group says

The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army appeals for UN help to recover bodies from a village buried by a landslide after heavy rain.

A landslide has destroyed an entire village in Sudan’s western Darfur region, killing an estimated 1,000 people, according to a rebel group that controls the area.

According to news agencies, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) issued a statement late on Monday reporting the disaster in the Marra Mountains area of Darfur.

SLM/A stated that the landslide occurred on Sunday, following days of heavy rainfall in the area, and the village of Tarasin was “completely levelled to the ground”, leaving only one survivor.

“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than one thousand individuals, with only one survivor,” the group said in a statement.

SLM/A also appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies for assistance in recovering the bodies of victims, including children.

The ruling Sovereign Council in Khartoum mourned “the death of hundreds of innocent residents” in the Marrah Mountains’ landslide. In a statement, it said “all possible capabilities” have been mobilized to support the area.

media’s Mohamed Vall, reporting from Khartoum, said sources told him about the difficulty in getting help in retrieving bodies of people who have been buried following the landslide and giving them a proper burial.

“That’s going to take a long time, and maybe it won’t even take place if there are no international teams that are specialised in these types of activities,” he said.

“I’ve been there, and I’ve seen the destitution, the seclusion, the dire poverty of people there living hand to mouth, even though the land is fertile there, they have citrus plants there and abundant water but they have no relationship with civilisation and that makes farming very difficult,” said Vall, adding that “other means of survival are basically impossible, they have no schools, there are no traces of government in that area”.

News of the disaster comes as Sudan’s ongoing war – now in its third year – plunges the country further into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises, with famine already declared in parts of Darfur.

People fleeing clashes between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) in North Darfur state had sought shelter in the Marra Mountains, and food and medication were in short supply, the Reuters news agency reported.

Factions of the SLM/A, which controls the area where the landslide occurred, have pledged to fight alongside the Sudanese military against the RSF.

Fighting has escalated in Darfur, especially in el-Fasher, since the army took control of the capital, Khartoum, from the RSF in March.

El-Fasher has been under the RSF siege for more than a year, as the paramilitary force is seeking to capture the strategic city, the last major population centre held by the army in the Darfur region.

The paramilitaries, who lost much of central Sudan, including Khartoum, earlier this year, are attempting to consolidate power in the west and establish a rival government.