The village of Tarseen, nestled in Sudan’s remote Marra Mountains, was all but erased on Sunday, August 31, 2025, when a massive landslide swept through the area, leaving behind a scene of devastation that has stunned both local and international observers. The disaster has exposed not only the fragility of a region battered by nature, but also the deep scars left by years of civil war, hunger, and displacement.
According to the BBC, the United Nations’ deputy humanitarian coordinator for Sudan, Antoine Gérard, reported that at least 370 people died in the landslide. However, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM/A), which controls the affected region, put the death toll much higher—at around 1,000. Their early statement delivered a grim assessment: “Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated to be more than one thousand individuals, with only one survivor.” This lone survivor was discovered amidst the ruins, a rare glimmer of hope in an otherwise bleak landscape.
The catastrophe followed days of relentless rain that saturated the already unstable slopes of the Jebel Marra region. The SLM/A’s leader, Abdelwahid Mohamed Nur, described the situation in a statement quoted by Reuters: “Tarseen, famed for its citrus production, has now been completely levelled to the ground.” The group urgently appealed to the United Nations and international agencies to help recover bodies and provide emergency shelter. Nur’s plea was echoed by Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minnawi, who called the event a “humanitarian tragedy” and implored, “We appeal to international humanitarian organizations to urgently intervene and provide support and assistance at this critical moment, for the tragedy is greater than what our people can bear alone.”
Getting help to Tarseen is proving to be an enormous challenge. The region is notoriously difficult to access, especially during the rainy season. “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,” Gérard told the BBC. Arjimand Hussain, regional response manager for Plan International, added that the last 45 kilometers to Tarseen are impassable to vehicles and can only be traversed on foot or by donkey. Volunteers have managed to recover just nine bodies so far, according to Abdelhafiz Ali from the Jebel Marra Emergency Room, who also noted that the village had been hosting hundreds of people displaced by fighting elsewhere.
The landslide’s victims were, in many cases, already among the most vulnerable. As NPR reported, many had escaped the violence of Sudan’s ongoing civil war, seeking refuge in the Marra Mountains after fleeing from the besieged city of El Fasher or the Zamzam refugee camp, which was overrun by the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) earlier this year. The RSF, a paramilitary group, now controls most of Darfur, except for El Fasher, which has been under siege for more than 500 days. The siege has left hundreds of thousands trapped behind earthen walls, facing starvation and daily artillery shelling. The Sudan Doctors Network reported that overnight shelling on September 2 killed 18 people and wounded more than 100, including women and children.
The humanitarian crisis in Sudan has been deepening for years. The civil war, now in its third year, pits the Sudanese Armed Forces against the RSF, with the SLM/A largely remaining neutral and providing a rare safe haven in Jebel Marra. Yet, the ongoing conflict has left more than half of Sudan’s population facing crisis levels of hunger, and millions have been displaced. UNICEF estimates that 260,000 people, including 130,000 children, remain trapped in El Fasher alone, cut off from aid for over 16 months. “We are witnessing a devastating tragedy – children in El-Fasher are starving while UNICEF’s lifesaving nutrition services are being blocked,” said Catherine Russell, UNICEF’s Executive Director, in late August. “Blocking humanitarian access is a grave violation of children’s rights, and the lives of children are hanging in the balance.”
For those who made it to Tarseen, the promise of safety was tragically short-lived. The village, known for its citrus groves, had become a sanctuary for families displaced by war, famine, and disease. But the persistent heavy rains, which have made travel and aid delivery nearly impossible, triggered the landslide that wiped out the community almost entirely. “Nearby villagers are overwhelmed with fear that a similar fate might befall them if the ... torrential rainfall persists, which underscores the urgent need for a comprehensive evacuation plan and provision of emergency shelter,” Nur warned, according to Reuters.
The disaster has also underscored the limitations of humanitarian response in a region where access is blocked not just by geography, but by ongoing violence and political complexity. Aid groups, including the United Nations, have faced attacks and pressure from both the army and the RSF. The RSF’s leader, Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, was recently sworn in as head of a rival government, a move rejected by the international community. The Sudanese army controls much of the rest of the country, including the capital, Khartoum. Despite expressions of condolence and willingness to assist from both the army-controlled government and the RSF’s prime minister, Mohamed Hassan al-Taishi, the reality on the ground remains dire.
International voices have joined in mourning and calls for action. Pope Leo sent his condolences and prayers for those affected, according to a Vatican statement. Yet, for the survivors and the families of the missing, words offer little comfort. The SLM/A continues to urge the world not to look away, insisting that “the tragedy is greater than what our people can bear alone.”
As the rains continue to fall and the threat of further landslides looms, the people of Darfur are left to grapple not only with the immediate aftermath of a natural disaster, but also with the relentless pressures of war, hunger, and displacement. The story of Tarseen is a stark reminder of the compound crises facing Sudan—a place where nature’s fury and human conflict have combined to create a catastrophe of almost unimaginable scale.
In the shadow of the Marra Mountains, the world’s largest humanitarian crisis continues to unfold, demanding urgent attention and action from the international community. The fate of Tarseen’s people, and of millions more across Sudan, now hangs in the balance.