A landslide has destroyed an entire village in Sudan’s western Darfur region, killing an estimated 1,000 people, according to a rebel group. The rebel group said the landslide struck on Sunday after days of heavy rainfall in the area, and the village was “completely levelled to the ground”, leaving only one survivor. The rebels also appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies for assistance.
GENEINA SEPTEMBER 2: A landslide has destroyed an entire village in Sudan’s western Darfur region, killing an estimated 1,000 people, according to a rebel group that controls the area. News agencies said the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army issued a statement late on Monday reporting the disaster in the Marra Mountains area of Darfur.
The SLM has mostly stayed out of the civil war, but controls parts of Sudan’s tallest mountain range. Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minnawi, called the landslide a “humanitarian tragedy that goes beyond the borders of the region”.
According to a UN official, 370 people died in the inaccessible Marra Mountains. Antoine Gérard, the UN’s deputy humanitarian co-ordinator for Sudan, said that it was hard to assess the scale of the incident or the exact death toll as the area was very hard to reach.
The rebel group said the landslide struck on Sunday after days of heavy rainfall in the area, and the village was “completely levelled to the ground”, leaving only one survivor. “Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than one thousand individuals, with only one survivor,” the group said in a statement.
The rebels also appealed to the United Nations and international aid agencies for assistance in recovering the bodies of victims, which included children.
News of the disaster comes as Sudan’s ongoing civil 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.
