Fasinjoji sun tsira.

The passengers survived.

Breakdown of Fasinjoji sun tsira.

• su: they
• fasinja: the passenger
• tsira: to survive; escape

Questions & Answers about Fasinjoji sun tsira.

What does sun mean here?

Sun is the 3rd person plural completive/perfective subject marker. In simple terms, it means something like they in a completed action.

So in Fasinjoji sun tsira, sun tells you:

• the subject is plural
• the action is viewed as completed

It is not exactly a separate English-style auxiliary verb, but it often gets translated as part of they survived / they have survived.

Why is sun there if Fasinjoji already means passengers?

Because that is normal Hausa grammar.

When Hausa uses a full subject noun, it still usually includes the matching subject marker before the verb:

• Fasinjoji sun tsira
• literally something like Passengers they-survived

This is not considered redundant in Hausa. It is a standard pattern.

Is this sentence in the past tense?

Usually, yes, but more precisely it is completive/perfective, not just simple past.

Depending on context, Fasinjoji sun tsira can be understood as:

• The passengers survived
• The passengers have survived

So the idea is that the surviving is a completed event or a completed result, not an ongoing process.