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THREAD. Using recent satellite imagery, this thread will take you through the scorching 12km journey from Baghouz - ISIS' final holdout - to the nearby civilian screening point run by the SDF. It's a journey that 9,000 (including 6,000 civilians) have taken in the last 72hr. 1/pic.twitter.com/xThRFKw7ki
As you leave you snake through an impromptu town filled with tents, ISIS and craters from shelling, some as close as 10m to a makeshift structure. ISIS are all around occupying the few structures but also walking with you to the SDF. Those who arent ISIS are often their relativespic.twitter.com/0Hx26HSPxf
Exiting the town you walk past a derelict complex of buildings and are forced to wind up a dried-up wadi. The road ahead - some of it paved - is blocked by a well-constructed trench, bombed out intersection and, likely, armed SDF fighter blocking infiltration from ISIS.pic.twitter.com/sBmBltviAv
You don't know where the shooting is coming from as you leave, but you know where it's aimed. Some of those around you a nursing bullet wounds. These wounds will have to wait until you reach the few medics at the screening point
There's an abandoned fighting position along the path. Bombed to shit and very likely mined. The road has been blocked by craters to the North and the South. 4/pic.twitter.com/bhUM1FIvdx
All along the trip there are jets (here a B1-B) buzzing the trail and heading towards the town you just came from. 5/pic.twitter.com/rCLDJUTe06
The track used to be more direct, but on or around Feb 7th, the trail was bombed and you're forced to once again follow the dried bed of the wadi. Those who kept going straight needed to double-back and take an even more timely detour. 6/pic.twitter.com/KkIKG5EKAQ
Going across the plain and up Jebal Baghouz you approach SDF forward positions. They look mostly abandoned but there are still soldiers in many positions, with their machine guns pointed at you. You're not sure how they will react to the ISIS amongst you, or ISIS to them. 7/pic.twitter.com/1uOMu4vbUo
All in all there are 5 positions you pass close by as you walk, before once again reaching the dry open plain, with bodies of those who have collapsed on the walk and been left behind beside and on your path. Every time you see a vehicle approach you hide for your life. 8/pic.twitter.com/5o2U7ySJlX
Youre not from here, very few people amongst you are, and for anyone but a smuggler these featureless plains are difficult to navigate. You dont even know where exactly you're headed. As the paths cross you hope to not get lost. Groups have wandered into wadis and not come out 9/pic.twitter.com/fPWByvnyF8
Another makeshift refinery, but this one is much bigger. There's nothing but repeating troughs in the earth and only one path leads anywhere other than a bulldozed and well-guarded trench.pic.twitter.com/iBG9yESmfz
After making it through the refinery you come across this small junction where many of the small tracks come together to steer past a small escarpment. 11/pic.twitter.com/MIqJviH7p8
As you cross from behind that rise, you see the yellow SDF flag flying high from an armed vehicle, a winding trenchline, the commotion of a large group of people and SDF soldiers staring at you from their elevated positions. 12/pic.twitter.com/GWKU06pEBr
Beyond this screening point - manned by a few soldiers and backed up by the might of the US army not far behind it - is aid, medics and relief, for those of you not ISIS soldiers. 13/pic.twitter.com/I4dcrUq5L2
Even here the only medical care an aid comes from a weird mix of white-evangelist combat medics, South-East Asian Christians and a handful of Kurdish civilians. They can stabilise most of the wounded but no real care is available for hours in any direction. 14/pic.twitter.com/8dpKsGvdyH
And that's all there really is. For scores of miles all around. You're put on a bus on a bumpy road and driven for hours North. 15/pic.twitter.com/FD9FNNZqQu
In recent days 75 people have died on this drive. The first place you can get any proper sanitation and hygiene aid is in a town over 100km to the North, along dusty roads. In Suwar there is a fresh aid station, designed for 400 but packed with 3000.https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1100366360167645185 …
The final place for most people after this journey is the al-Hawl IDP Camp, some 40,000 people have settled here in the previous few months. 17/https://twitter.com/Nrg8000/status/1100402642608504833 …
That timelapse, showing imagery up to yesterday, shows most of the growth in Sector 5 of the camp. This map shows the camp's layout.(https://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/reach_syr_factsheet_northeastsyria_campandinformalsiteprofilesround4_alholrefugees_feb2019_0.pdf …) So many people have arrived in the past few days that camp managers have directed new arrivals to sector 7. 18/pic.twitter.com/gJ7BE6ofPH
In a survey from December, 85% of the residents in this camp had no plans to leave the camp. Recent reports (https://ctc.usma.edu/hollow-victory-islamic-state-syria-high-risk-jihadi-revival-deir-ez-zors-euphrates-river-valley/ …) show that ISIS has stockpiled considerable resources and fight until the end for that small patch of land. 19/
Any estimates of the numbers remaining in that pocket are vague at best, and many more have fled than were ever estimated to be there. This is a humanitarian crisis that sits 8 years into a deadly war, and is still just at its beginning. 20/
The implications of the journey I just described, replicated tens-of-thousands of times will reverberate throughout North East Syria, and potentially the wider-region for years to come. The story of ISIS, and those fleeing Baghouz is far from over 21/21
Huge shout-out to @LeLoveluck for her fabulous reporting in general, and her insights into the experiences of those fleeing along this route. Without her this thread would just be greyscale images from above. Also @Obretix for his outstanding work geolocating parts of this battle
I should also add that this analysis was done using imagery taken on Feb 9th, before there most recent and large-scale escapes. I suspect if you look now some of the routes may have shifted and there would be far more traffic. We'll need to wait for more recent imagery.
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