A landslide has killed at least 370 people in the remote Marra Mountains in western Sudan, a UN official has told the BBC.
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.
Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), the armed group in control of the affected area, had earlier said as many as 1,000 people could have died.
Days of heavy rain triggered the landslide on Sunday, which left just one survivor and “levelled” much of the village of Tarseen, the group said in a statement.
The SLM/A has appealed for humanitarian assistance from the UN and other regional and international organisations.
Getting aid quickly to the area would be difficult, Mr Gérard said.
“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… bringing in trucks with commodities will be a challenge.”
Many residents from North Darfur state had sought refuge in the Marra Mountains region, after war between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF) forced them from their homes.
The SLM/A has remained neutral in the conflict.
Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minnawi, called the landslide a “humanitarian tragedy”.
Credit: bbc.com
