|
Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
|
A devastating landslide has killed more than 400 people in the remote Marra Mountains of western Sudan, according to a UN official.
Antoine Gérard, the UN’s Deputy Humanitarian Coordinator for Sudan, said it was difficult to assess the scale of the disaster or confirm the exact death toll, as the area is extremely hard to reach.
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the armed group controlling the affected area, had earlier claimed that as many as 1,000 people may have died.
Days of heavy rainfall triggered the landslide on Sunday, leaving just one survivor and “leveling” much of the village of Tarseen, the group said in a statement.
The SLM/A has appealed for humanitarian assistance from the UN and other regional and international organizations.
Delivering aid quickly to the area would be difficult, Gérard noted.
“We do not have helicopters. Everything must go by vehicle on very bumpy roads. It takes time, and it is the rainy season — sometimes we have to wait hours, maybe a day or two, to cross a valley. Bringing in trucks with supplies will be a challenge.”
Many residents of North Darfur state had sought refuge in the Marra Mountains after the ongoing war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) forced them from their homes. The SLM/A has remained neutral in the conflict.
Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minnawi, described the landslide as a “humanitarian tragedy.”
“We appeal to international humanitarian organizations to urgently intervene and provide support and assistance at this critical moment, for the tragedy is greater than what our people can bear alone,” he said in a statement.
Mahmoud Ali Youssouf, head of the African Union Commission, called on the warring parties “to silence the guns and unite in facilitating the swift and effective delivery of emergency humanitarian assistance to the distressed.”
Photos from the scene show two gullies on the mountainside converging at a lower level where the village of Tarseen once stood.
Sudan has been in the grip of civil war since April 2023, when fighting broke out between the army and the RSF. The conflict has plunged the country into famine and sparked accusations of genocide in the western Darfur region.
Estimates of the war’s death toll vary widely, but a US official last year estimated that up to 150,000 people had been killed since hostilities began.
Factions of the SLM/A, which controls the area where the landslide occurred, have pledged to fight alongside the Sudanese military against the RSF.
Many Darfuris accuse the RSF and allied militias of waging a campaign aimed at transforming the ethnically mixed region into an Arab-ruled domain.
