• Entire village buried in Jebel Marra.
• Only one survivor pulled from disaster.
• SLM appeals for urgent UN assistance.

KHARTOUM: A massive landslide in Sudan’s western Darfur region has flattened an entire mountain village and killed more than 1,000 people, a rebel group said, leaving only one survivor.

The disaster struck Sunday after days of heavy rain, devastating the village of Tarasin in the Jebel Marra area, the Sudan Liberation Movement/Army (SLM), led by Abdulwahid al-Nur, said in a statement.

“Initial information indicates the death of all village residents, estimated at more than 1,000 individuals, with only one survivor,” the group said, calling the landslide “massive and devastating”.

The group appealed to the United Nations and other aid organisations for help recovering the dead still buried under mud and debris.

Images the SLM published on social media appeared to show huge sections of the mountainside collapsed, burying the village under thick mud, uprooted trees and shattered beams.

Sudan is embroiled in a bloody war between the army and paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), which has plunged the country into one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

The SLM controls parts of the Jebel Marra range and has mostly stayed out of the conflict, but hundreds of thousands of people have fled into SLM-held territory to escape the violence.

Jebel Marra is a rugged volcanic range stretching about 160 kilometres (100 miles) southwest of North Darfur’s besieged capital of El-Fasher, which the RSF is pushing to capture after besieging it for more than a year.

The area is prone to landslides, particularly during the rainy season which peaks in August. A 2018 landslide in nearby Toukoli killed at least 20 people.

‘Tragedy’

Darfur’s army-aligned governor, Minni Minnawi, called the landslide a “humanitarian tragedy that goes beyond the borders of the region”.

“We appeal to international humanitarian organisations to urgently intervene and provide support and assistance at this critical moment, for the tragedy is greater than what our people can bear alone,” he said in a statement.

Much of Darfur — including the area where the landslide occurred — remains largely inaccessible to international aid organisations due to the ongoing fighting, severely limiting the delivery of urgent humanitarian assistance.

The disaster also comes during Sudan’s rainy season, which often renders mountain roads and remote areas impassable.

The relentless rainfall further complicates efforts by humanitarian organisations to access those in need, particularly in conflict-affected regions like Darfur where infrastructure is already fragile or non-existent.

Since April 2023, Sudan has been ravaged by a war that erupted with a power struggle between army chief Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and his former deputy, RSF commander Mohamed Hamdan Daglo.

In a series of offensives, Burhan’s forces regained central Sudan this year, leaving the RSF with control over most of Darfur — where it has conquered all but one state capital, El-Fasher — and parts of southern Kordofan.

The fighting has killed tens of thousands and displaced millions, including about four million from the capital alone.

The war has decimated the northeast African country’s infrastructure and created what the UN describes as the world’s largest displacement and hunger crises.

About 10 million people are currently displaced within Sudan, while an additional four million have fled to neighbouring countries, according to the UN.

• Thousands in flood-hit areas forced to seek shelter in relief camps.
• Modi assures Punjab CM of of federal government’s “full support”.
• Authorities say “huge loss of livestock” feared in devastating floods.

A thousand villages in India’s Punjab state are marooned by deadly floods, with thousands forced to seek shelter in relief camps, government authorities say.

Flooding across the northwestern state killed at least 29 people and affected over 250,000 last month, with the state’s chief minister calling it “one of the worst flood disasters in decades”.

The region is often dubbed India’s breadbasket, but more than 940 square kilometres (360 square miles) of farmland are flooded, leading to “devastating crop losses”, Punjab’s Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann wrote in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Modi on Monday assured him of the federal government’s “full support”.

Authorities have said they fear a “huge loss of livestock”, the full extent of which will only be clear when the waters recede, according to a bulletin issued by the state authorities late Monday.

India’s army and disaster teams have carried out vast rescue operations, deploying more than 1,000 boats and 30 helicopters to rescue the stranded or supply food.

“The most important thing is to save the lives of people and helpless animals trapped in the water,” Mann said in a statement.

Rivers in the region cross into Pakistan, where floodwater has also engulfed swathes of land.

Floods and landslides are common during the June-September monsoon season in the subcontinent, but experts say climate change, coupled with poorly planned development, is increasing their frequency, severity and impact.

Northwest India has seen rainfall surge by more than a third on average from June to September, according to the national weather department.

In the capital Delhi, relentless rains have swollen the Yamuna river — which breached its danger mark on Tuesday, inundating several areas and creating traffic snarl-ups lasting for hours.

Deadly floods triggered by record-breaking rain also killed dozens in India’s Jammu and Kashmir region last month.

Presidents Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin took turns Monday to swipe at the West during a gathering of Eurasian leaders aimed at putting Beijing front and centre of regional relations.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO)touts itself as a non-Western style of collaboration between 10 countries in the region and seeks to be an alternative to traditional alliances.

Xi told leaders, including Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko and India´s Prime Minister Narendra Modi, that the global situation was becoming more “chaotic and intertwined”.

The Chinese leader also slammed “bullying behaviour” from certain countries — a veiled reference to the United States.

“The security and development tasks facing member states have become even more challenging,” he said in his address in the northern port city of Tianjin.

“With the world undergoing turbulence and transformation, we must continue to follow the Shanghai spirit…and better perform the functions of the organisation.”

Putin used his speech to defend Russia´s Ukraine offensive, blaming the West for triggering the three-and-a-half-year conflict that has killed tens of thousands and devastated much of eastern Ukraine.

“This crisis wasn’t triggered by Russia´s attack on Ukraine, but was a result of a coup in Ukraine, which was supported and provoked by the West,” Putin said.

Ukraine’s foreign ministry urged China to work towards peace during Putin’s visit, saying in a statement from Kyiv they “would welcome a more active role” for Beijing to help find peace “based on respect for the UN Charter”.

Putin, meanwhile, praised Turkey’s mediation efforts in the conflict as he met Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

And Putin later met his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian, the Kremlin said, with the pair expected to discuss Iran’s nuclear programme.

‘Always insightful’

Earlier, leaders from the 10 countries — China, India, Russia, Pakistan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Belarus — posed for a group photo on a red carpet.

Xi, Putin and Modi were seen chatting, flanked by their translators. Modi and Putin were photographed holding hands and held talks in the afternoon.

Russian state media reported the pair spent nearly an hour talking “face-to-face” in Putin’s armoured presidential car before an official meeting.

“Conversations with him are always insightful,” Modi posted on X alongside a photograph of them travelling in the car.

Before their meeting, Modi praised the “special and privileged strategic partnership” with Moscow and added that India wanted both sides in the Ukraine conflict to “find stable peace”.

‘Mutual trust’

The SCO summit kicked off on Sunday, days before a massive military parade in Beijing to mark 80 years since the end of World War II.

The member states signed a declaration on Monday agreeing to strengthen cooperation in sectors such as security and economy, China’s Xinhua news agency said.

Xinhua added that the leaders also admitted Laos as an observer country, or “dialogue partner” — the summit already has 16 observers.

Xi held a flurry of back-to-back meetings with leaders, including Lukashenko — one of Putin’s staunch allies — and Modi, who is on his first visit to China since 2018.

Modi told Xi that India was committed to taking “forward our ties based on mutual trust, dignity and sensitivity”.

The world’s two most populous nations are intense rivals, competing for influence across South Asia, and they fought a deadly border clash in 2020.

A thaw began last October, when Modi met Xi for the first time in five years at a summit in Russia.

Their rapprochement deepened as US President Donald Trump pressured both Asian economic giants with trade tariffs.

More than 20 leaders are attending the bloc´s largest meeting since it was founded in 2001.

Many of the assembled dignitaries will be in Beijing on Wednesday to watch the military parade, which will also be attended by North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.

A train carrying Kim passed into China early Tuesday, South Korea´s Yonhap news agency reported, citing the North´s state-run radio service.