JABAL MARRA – Volunteers in Sudan’s Jebel Marra have appealed to humanitarian and international organizations to urgently help recover bodies after a devastating landslide struck the village of Tarsin on Monday evening, September 1, 2025. Entire families were buried alive under the mud and rocks, with local sources estimating the death toll to exceed one thousand people.
The Sudan Liberation Movement/Army led by Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur, which controls much of Jebal Marra including the area near the disaster site, released a statement confirming the catastrophe. According to the movement, “around one thousand residents of Tarsin village were buried alive by the landslide.”
The Emergency Room in Tawila, also under the control of Abdel Wahid’s forces, issued a similar appeal on Tuesday, September 2, stressing the urgent need for international, humanitarian, and national groups to intervene. The statement noted that “landslide in Tarsin claimed the lives of more than a thousand people,” underscoring that only coordinated external support can ensure recovery of the victims.
Meanwhile, the de facto Sovereignty Council in Port Sudan expressed condolences to the families of the victims. In a statement , its media office declared: “The president and members of the council extend their deepest sympathy and condolences to the families of the victims and to the Sudanese people as a whole.” The council also pledged to mobilize “all possible resources to provide relief and assistance to those affected by this tragic disaster in Tarisn.”
In Darfur, regional governor Minni Arko Minnawi described the catastrophe as ” a humanitarian tragedy that goes beyond the borders of the region.” He emphasized the scale of devastation, noting that “a large number of people lost their lives in a destructive natural disaster,” while appealing for urgent international humanitarian intervention. “The magnitude of the disaster exceeds the capacity of local communities to cope,” Minnawi warned.
Landslides occur when unstable masses of soil and rock break loose from mountain slopes, often triggered by heavy rainfall. In Jebel Marra, where small villages cling to the mountainsides, such disasters pose a recurring risk. In Jebal Marra, where small villages cling to the mountainsides, such disasters pose a recurring risk. Geologists say the mountain’s fragile, non-rocky structure makes it particularly vulnerable. Intense rainfall, combined with land-use changes from daily human activists, contributes to the likelihood of landslides.
This is not the first such tragedy in the area. In 2018, a landslide in the nearby village of Turba buried most of its inhabitants. Activists now fear that the Tarsin disaster may be the deadliest yet.
Humanitarian workers and emergency volunteers have criticized the Sudanese authorities for their silence in the face of the tragedy. Activists are urging the government to declare a period of mourning for the victims, send urgent aid, and relocate survivors from at-risk villages.
The scale of the tragedy has left both survivors and aid workers overwhelmed. For now, the pleas from Jebal Marra remain unanswered while hundreds of families wait for their loved ones to be pulled from beneath the earth.
