Sudan landslide: 100 bodies recovered in Darfur; over 1,000 feared dead as village wiped out

Rescue teams have recovered at least 100 bodies after a massive landslide buried an entire mountain village in Sudan’s Darfur region , a rebel group said on Wednesday.

The Abdulwahid al-Nur faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A) reported that torrential rains triggered the landslip, which devastated the remote village of Tarasin in the Jebel Marra mountains late Sunday.

“As of Tuesday, 100 bodies have been retrieved from the site,” SLM/A spokesman Mohamed Abdelrahman al-Nair said, adding that recovery efforts were continuing despite limited resources. Footage released by the group showed volunteers digging through mud and rubble with their bare hands.

Initial estimates from the rebels suggested that nearly all of Tarasin’s more than 1,000 residents were killed, with only one survivor found. UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the full scale of the disaster was still unclear, citing the remoteness of the area.

Darfur governor Minni Minnawi described the landslide as a “humanitarian tragedy that goes beyond the borders of the region” and appealed for urgent international assistance.

Sudan has been engulfed in civil war since 2023 between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), leaving large parts of Darfur inaccessible to aid groups. The conflict has hampered rescue efforts and further compounded the humanitarian crisis in the region.