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 (September 3, 2025).

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.

U.N. 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.

A landslide wiped out a village in Sudan’s western region of Darfur, killing an estimated 1,000 people in one of the deadliest natural disasters in the African country’s recent history, a rebel group controlling the area said late on Monday (September 1, 2025).

The tragedy happened on Sunday in the village of Tarasin in Central Darfur’s Marrah Mountains after days of heavy rainfall in late August, the Sudan Liberation Movement-Army said in a statement.

“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than one thousand people. Only one person survived,” the statement read.

The village was “completely levelled to the ground,” the group said, appealing to the U.N. and international aid groups for help to recover the bodies.

Footage shared by the Marrah Mountains news outlet showed a flattened area between mountain ranges with a group of people searching the area.

Amid civil war

The tragedy came as a devastating civil war has engulfed Sudan after tensions between the country’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces exploded into open fighting in April 2023 in the capital, Khartoum and elsewhere in the country.

Most of the Darfur region, including the Marrah Mountains, has become mostly inaccessible for the U.N. and aid groups given crippling restrictions and fighting between Sudan’s military and the RSF.

The Sudan Liberation Movement-Army, centred in the Marrah Mountains area, is one of multiple rebel groups active in the Darfur and Kordofan regions. It hasn’t taken sides in the war.

The Marrah Mountains are a rugged volcanic chain extending for 160 kilometres southwest of el-Fasher, an epicentre of fighting between the military and the RSF. The area has turned into a hub for displaced families fleeing fighting in and around el-Fasher.

The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people, forced more than 14 millions to flee their homes and left some families eating grass in a desperate attempt to survive as famine swept parts of the country.

It has been marked by gross atrocities including ethnically motivated killing and rape, according to the United Nations and rights groups. The International Criminal Court said it was investigating alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The village of Tarasin is located in the central Marrah Mountains, a volcanic area with a height of more than 3,000 metres at its summit. A world heritage site, the mountain chain is known for its lower temperature and higher rainfall than surrounding areas, according to UNICEF. It’s located more than 900 kilometres west of the capital city of 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.