The village of Tarasin was “completely levelled to the ground”, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the rebel group that controls the area, said as it appealed to the United Nations and international aid groups for help to recover the bodies on Tuesday.
The tragedy happened on Sunday in the village, located in Central Darfur’s Marrah Mountains, after days of heavy rainfall.
“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than 1, 000 people”, the rebel group said in a statement. “Only one person survived”, it added.
The ruling Sovereign Council in Khartoum said it mourned “the death of hundreds of innocent residents” in the Marrah Mountains landslide. In a statement, it said “all possible capabilities” have been mobilised to support the area.
Luca Renda, the UN humanitarian coordinator in Sudan, said he was “deeply saddened” by the reported landslide, adding that the UN and its partners were mobilising to support affected communities at the scene.
A local emergency network, which has been providing support to communities across Sudan during the war, said its teams recovered the bodies of at least nine people on Tuesday. Search teams were facing challenges to reach the area because of bad weather and a lack of resources, it added.
Mohamed Abdel-Rahman al-Nair, a SLM/A spokesman, told The Associated Press news agency that the village where the landslide took place is remote and accessible only by foot or donkeys.
Tarasin is located in the central Marrah Mountains, a volcanic area with a height of more than 3, 000 metres (9, 840 feet) at its summit. A World Heritage Site, the mountain chain is known for its lower temperatures and higher rainfall than surrounding areas, according to UNICEF. It is located more than 900 kilometres (560 miles) west of the capital, Khartoum.
Sunday’s landslide was one of the deadliest natural disasters in Sudan’s recent history. Hundreds of people die every year in seasonal rains that run from July to October. Last year’s heavy rainfall caused the collapse of a dam in the eastern Red Sea State, killing at least 30 people, according to the UN.
News of the disaster came as Sudan’s continuing 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 government-aligned Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) 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.
The UN and aid organizations have largely abandoned access to much of the area, with Doctors Without Borders (known by its French acronym MSF) branding it as a “black hole” in Sudan’s humanitarian response.
On Tuesday, the International Organization for Migration demanded that the area’s support be expanded and for safe access.
The SLM/A factions have pledged to fight the RSF in parallel.
Since the army seized Khartoum from the RSF in March, fighting has gotten worse, especially in El-Fasher.
The paramilitary force is attempting to occupy El-Fasher, the last significant population center held by the army in the Darfur region, for more than a year while the strategic city has been under RSF’s control for more than a year.
Source: Aljazeera
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