Rescuers have retrieved 270 bodies from the debris after a landslide wiped out a remote mountain village in western Sudan, the rebel group controlling the area has said.
The village of Tersin was hit on Sunday after a week of heavy rain in the Marra Mountains region of Darfur. An estimated 1,000 people were killed in what is believed to be among the deadliest natural disasters to ever hit the country.
There was one survivor, said armed group the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM). A faction of the group called Abdulwahid Al Nur told AFP that hundreds of people remain trapped under mud.
“So far, around 270 bodies have been recovered and buried,” said Mogeeb Al Zubeir, who heads the civilian authority in SLM-controlled territory. Dead livestock lie buried in thick sludge, he added.
“No humanitarian organisation has arrived yet,” Mr Al Zubeir said, while locals and SLM members were organising rescue efforts with limited resources.
The UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs said the area hit was “extremely hard to reach” and the death toll and full scale of the tragedy have yet to be confirmed.
“Between 300 and 1,000 people may have lost their lives,” said Luca Renda, the UN's humanitarian co-ordinator in Sudan.
The Marra Mountains area is a Unesco World Heritage site located in a volcanic region with peaks that reach up to 3,000 metres.
Hundreds of thousands of people have sought refuge in the area after fleeing fighting between the Sudanese army and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces, who are battling for territory in the country's two-year civil war.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands, displaced more than 13 million and caused a grave humanitarian crisis that has left half of Sudan's 50 million people hungry. The SLM has mostly stayed neutral in the fighting.
The landslide took place at the height of Sudan’s flooding season, which runs from July to October. Widespread damage has been reported in other areas of the country in recent weeks, including the village of Sofia in South Darfur province. About 100 houses were destroyed on Sunday in the village, according to the International Organisation for Migration.
In 2018, a smaller landslide in the Marra Mountains area killed at least 19 people and injured dozens.
Much of Darfur, including the area where the landslide occurred, remains largely inaccessible to international aid organisations because of the civil war. The violence has severely limited the delivery of humanitarian supplies.
Arjimand Hussain, regional response manager with Plan International, one of the few NGOs operating in Darfur, said the group, along with the UN, plans to send teams to Tersin in the coming days, but that heavy rain has made roads inaccessible.
“The whole humanitarian community is feeling helpless at the moment,” he said.
Pope Leo XIV spoke of the tragedy during his weekly address on Wednesday, saying it had left “behind pain and despair”.
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The five pillars of Islam
Du Plessis plans his retirement
South Africa captain Faf du Plessis said on Friday the Twenty20 World Cup in Australia in two years' time will be his last.
Du Plessis, 34, who has led his country in two World T20 campaigns, in 2014 and 2016, is keen to play a third but will then step aside.
"The T20 World Cup in 2020 is something I'm really looking forward to. I think right now that will probably be the last tournament for me," he said in Brisbane ahead of a one-off T20 against Australia on Saturday.
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MOUNTAINHEAD REVIEW
Starring: Ramy Youssef, Steve Carell, Jason Schwartzman
Director: Jesse Armstrong
Rating: 3.5/5
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Other IPL batting records
Most sixes: 292 – Chris Gayle
Most fours: 491 – Gautam Gambhir
Highest individual score: 175 not out – Chris Gayle (for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors in 2013)
Highest strike-rate: 177.29 – Andre Russell
Highest strike-rate in an innings: 422.22 – Chris Morris (for Delhi Daredevils against Rising Pune Supergiant in 2017)
Highest average: 52.16 – Vijay Shankar
Most centuries: 6 – Chris Gayle
Most fifties: 36 – Gautam Gambhir
Fastest hundred (balls faced): 30 – Chris Gayle (for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Pune Warriors in 2013)
Fastest fifty (balls faced): 14 – Lokesh Rahul (for Kings XI Punjab against Delhi Daredevils in 2018)
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Farage on Muslim Brotherhood
Nigel Farage told Reform's annual conference that the party will proscribe the Muslim Brotherhood if he becomes Prime Minister.
"We will stop dangerous organisations with links to terrorism operating in our country," he said. "Quite why we've been so gutless about this – both Labour and Conservative – I don't know.
“All across the Middle East, countries have banned and proscribed the Muslim Brotherhood as a dangerous organisation. We will do the very same.”
It is 10 years since a ground-breaking report into the Muslim Brotherhood by Sir John Jenkins.
Among the former diplomat's findings was an assessment that “the use of extreme violence in the pursuit of the perfect Islamic society” has “never been institutionally disowned” by the movement.
The prime minister at the time, David Cameron, who commissioned the report, said membership or association with the Muslim Brotherhood was a "possible indicator of extremism" but it would not be banned.
The specs: 2019 Aston Martin DBS Superleggera
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
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Ashraf Ghani: 923,592 votes
Abdullah Abdullah: 720,841 votes
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Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Brief scores:
Toss: Sindhis, elected to field first
Kerala Knights 103-7 (10 ov)
Parnell 59 not out; Tambe 5-15
Sindhis 104-1 (7.4 ov)
Watson 50 not out, Devcich 49
The specs
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The years Ramadan fell in May
Opening weekend Premier League fixtures
Weekend of August 10-13
Arsenal v Manchester City
Bournemouth v Cardiff City
Fulham v Crystal Palace
Huddersfield Town v Chelsea
Liverpool v West Ham United
Manchester United v Leicester City
Newcastle United v Tottenham Hotspur
Southampton v Burnley
Watford v Brighton & Hove Albion
Wolverhampton Wanderers v Everton
Mohammed bin Zayed Majlis
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
Evacuations to France hit by controversy
- Over 500 Gazans have been evacuated to France since November 2023
- Evacuations were paused after a student already in France posted anti-Semitic content and was subsequently expelled to Qatar
- The Foreign Ministry launched a review to determine how authorities failed to detect the posts before her entry
- Artists and researchers fall under a programme called Pause that began in 2017
- It has benefited more than 700 people from 44 countries, including Syria, Turkey, Iran, and Sudan
- Since the start of the Gaza war, it has also included 45 Gazan beneficiaries
- Unlike students, they are allowed to bring their families to France
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
UAE currency: the story behind the money in your pockets
