Plea for help after landslide wipes out Sudan village, killing 1,000

Khartoum: An armed group that controls part of western Sudan appealed for foreign help in recovering bodies and rescuing residents from torrential rain, after it said at least 1,000 people were killed when a landslide buried a mountain village.

Only one person survived the destruction of the village of Tarseen in the mountainous Jebel Marra area of the Darfur region, said the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army.

SLM/A, which has long controlled and governed an autonomous portion of Jebel Marra, appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies to help collect the bodies of victims, including men, women and children.

“Tarseen, famed for its citrus production, has now been completely levelled to the ground,” the group said in a statement. Continuing rains have made travel in the region difficult and could impede any rescue or aid efforts.

“Nearby villagers are overwhelmed with fear that a similar fate might befall them if the … torrential rainfall persists, which underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive evacuation plan and provision of emergency shelter,” the group’s leader, Abdelwahid Mohamed Nur, said in a separate appeal.

A statement by the U.N.’s resident coordinator put the death toll at between 300 and 1,000, citing local reports.

Arjimand Hussain, regional response manager for the development group Plan International, said the last 45 km of the route to Tarseen were impassable to motor vehicles and could only be negotiated on foot or by donkey.

Nine bodies were recovered by volunteers, said Abdelhafiz Ali from the Jebel Marra Emergency Room, who noted that the village had hosted hundreds of people displaced by fighting.

The SLM/A has remained neutral in the battle between the main enemies in Sudan’s civil war, the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces. The two foes are fighting over control of al-Fashir, capital of North Darfur state, which is under siege from the RSF and has suffered famine.

Residents of al-Fashir and nearby areas have sought shelter in Jebel Marra, though food, shelter, and medical supplies are insufficient and hundreds of thousands have been exposed to the rains. Tawila, where most have arrived, is in the throes of a cholera outbreak, as are other parts of Darfur.

The two-year civil war has left more than half of Sudan’s population facing crisis levels of hunger and driven millions from their homes, leaving them especially exposed to the country’s damaging annual floods.

Sudan’s army-controlled government expressed its condolences and willingness to assist.

The prime minister of a newly-installed RSF-controlled rival government, Mohamed Hassan al-Taishi, said he would be coordinating with the SLM/A on the delivery of aid supplies to the area.

Pope Leo sent his condolences and said he was praying for those affected, according to a Vatican statement.