Sudan recovers 100 bodies after Darfur landslide: rebel group

This handout image made available by the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM), on September 1, 2025, shows people inspecting the debris after a landslide devastated the village of Tarasin in Sudan's Jebel Marra area. [AFP]

Rescue teams have recovered 100 bodies from under the mud after a landslide buried a remote mountain village in Sudan's Darfur region, the rebel group that controls the area said Wednesday.

Heavy rains triggered the landslip which almost wiped out the village of Tarasin in the Jebel Marra range, the Abdulwahid al-Nur faction of the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army said.

"As of yesterday (Tuesday), 100 bodies have been retrieved from the site," the group's spokesman, Mohamed Abdelrahman al-Nair, said.

The search and recovery operation is continuing despite the limited resources available, he told AFP via a messaging app.

Footage shared by the SLM on Wednesday showed volunteers using their bare hands to recover a body from under the mud and rubble.

Initial estimates by the rebel group suggested that nearly all of the village's more than 1,000 inhabitants had been killed, with only one survivor.

UN spokesperson Stephane Dujarric said the full scale of the disaster remains unclear "as the impacted area is extremely hard to reach".

Since April 2023, fighting between the army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has killed tens of thousands of people and driven more than 14 million from their homes.

The SLM, which controls parts of Jebel Marra, has largely stayed out of the conflict, but hundreds of thousands of people have fled into SLM-held territory to escape the violence.

The region lies southwest of El-Fasher, the capital of North Darfur state, which has been besieged by paramilitary forces for over a year.

The area, known for citrus production, is prone to landslides, particularly during the rainy season which peaks in August.