At least 370 people were killed after a landslide struck a village in Sudan’s remote Marra Mountains, a UN official said.
Antoine Gerard, the UN’s deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, said it was difficult to determine the exact number of casualties as the area struck by the landslide was far-flung and difficult to reach.
“We do not have helicopters, everything goes in vehicles 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,” he was quoted as saying by the BBC. “Bringing in trucks with commodities will be a challenge.”
It was previously reported that the landslide, which devastated Tarasin village in the western Darfur region on Sunday, had killed more than 1,000 people.
“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than one thousand people. Only one person survived,” the rebel group controlling the area, the Sudan Liberation Movement, said in a statement earlier.
The group said the disaster followed several days of heavy rainfall.
The village had been “completely levelled to the ground”, it added, and urged the UN and international aid organisations to assist in recovering bodies.
Minni Minnawi, Darfur’s governor, said the landslide was a “humanitarian tragedy”. “We appeal to international humanitarian organisations 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 quoted by AFP.
According to Al Jazeera, the Marrah Mountains of central Darfur, inaccessible by road, serve as a refuge for people displaced by conflict, making its villages densely populated.
The disaster struck amid a brutal civil war that erupted in April 2023 with clashes between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces erupted in Khartoum and across the country.
Factions of the Sudan Liberation Movement, which control the region affected by the landslide, have declared their support for the Sudanese military in fighting the Rapid Support Forces.
The conflict and severe access restrictions have left much of Darfur, including the Marrah Mountains, largely unreachable for the UN and humanitarian organisations.
Estimates of casualties from the ongoing civil war vary widely, with a US official last year putting the death toll at up to 150,000 and the number of displaced at around 12 million, the BBC reported.
