Sudan has recovered 270 bodies from under the mud after a landslide buried a remote mountain village in the Darfur region, a civilian leader under the rebel group controlling the area said Wednesday.
Heavy rains triggered the landslip which almost wiped out the village of Tarasin in the Jebel Marra range, the Abdulwahid al-Nur faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM) said.
Citing sources on the ground, the United Nations said that between 300 and 1,000 people were killed in the landslide though the full scale of the disaster remains unclear due to the area’s inaccessibility.
“So far, around 270 bodies have been recovered and buried,” said Mogeeb al-Rahman Mohamed al-Zubeir, who heads the civilian authority in SLM-controlled territory.
“Hundreds remain trapped under the rubble that swallowed homes and farmland,” he told AFP via satellite phone from the Jebel Marra region.
Dead livestock lie buried in the thick sludge, he said, and water resources across the area have been affected.
“No humanitarian organisation has arrived yet,” Zubeir said, adding that the entire rescue mission falls to local residents and SLM members, both working with extremely limited resources.
“The scale of the disaster is larger than I had imagined,” he said, after arriving in the village on Wednesday.
– ‘Pain and despair’ –
Footage shared by the SLM on Wednesday showed local residents wading through the mud, using only their bare hands to excavate bodies from the debris.
Initial estimates by the rebel group suggested that nearly all of the village’s more than 1,000 inhabitants had been killed, with only one survivor.
The UN’s migration agency estimated that around 150 people have been displaced from Tarasin and adjacent villages in the aftermath.
On Wednesday, Pope Leo XIV called for a “coordinated response” to the unfolding “humanitarian catastrophe” in Sudan, with its aftermath marked by “pain and despair”.
Sudan has been devastated by war since April 2023, as battles between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces have killed tens of thousands and displaced millions.
Thousands of displaced people have sought refuge in SLM-held areas.
Situated in rugged volcanic terrain southwest of El-Fasher — the besieged capital of North Darfur — the Jebel Marra region is notoriously difficult to access, especially during the rainy season, which peaks in August.
Sudan’s General Authority for Geological Research said the region is one of the most geologically active areas in Sudan, sitting on a major tectonic belt stretching across central and western Sudan.
It warned that recurring landslides in the region could have “catastrophic” humanitarian and environmental consequences.
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© Agence France-Presse
