[Published here on February 15, 2019]
As destitute civilians stumble out of the Islamic State group’s last enclave in east Syria, a mixed bag of unlikely characters are pitching in to help get them to safety.
Syria
In Syria, families flee IS holdout to dust and desperation | AFP
[Published here on February 14, 2019]
The cry echoed across the chalk-dry Syrian plain: “Water!” Within seconds, the truck carrying a few dozen bottles was emptied by parched refugees who had spent the night out in the open.
Hundreds flee US-backed Syria battle for last IS holdout | AFP
[Published here on February 13, 2019]
The ferocious battle for the Islamic State group’s last bastion in eastern Syria entered its fifth day on Wednesday, as exhausted families left the ever-shrinking scrap of land where holdout jihadists have been boxed in by Kurdish-led forces.
In eastern Syria, the infants of a dying IS ‘caliphate’ | AFP
[Published here on February 12, 2019]
They were born in a “state” that no longer exists, most to fathers who are dead and mothers whose countries don’t want them back. These are the children pouring out of Baghouz.
Fleeing IS holdout, French women say foreigners still inside | AFP
[Published here on February 11, 2019]
Two French women who fled the Islamic State group’s last pocket in Syria told AFP on Monday more foreigners were trapped inside, barred from leaving by Iraqi jihadists.
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Canadian jihadist says IS foreign fighters ‘hung out to dry’ | AFP
[Published here February 11, 2019]
A Canadian jihadist detained in Syria told AFP on Sunday he has been “hung out to dry” by the Islamic State group like other foreign fighters and appealed to his government for help.
Barely alive after IS, Syrian babies haunted by malnutrition | AFP
[Published here February 8, 2019]
They survived the Islamic State group’s crumbling “caliphate” by a thread, but skeletal babies streaming into this displacement camp in northeastern Syria now face a race against malnutrition.
HRW warns against secret repatriations from Syria | ِِAFP
[Published here on February 7, 2019]
Any transfers of suspected foreign jihadists and their relatives out of Syria should be transparent, Human Rights Watch told AFP, as camps in the northeast fill with families of different nationalities.
The group chat catching fleeing ISIS fighters | Popular Front
I was a guest on Jake Hanrahan’s podcast Popular Front last week to discuss low-tech ways that non-government forces are catching Islamic State group fighters on the run from their collapsed ‘caliphate’ in Syria and Iraq. Listen to the episode here:
Syrians in ex-rebel zones struggle after aid groups withdraw | AFP
[Published here October 8, 2018]
Beirut (AFP) – Tens of thousands of Syrians in areas recaptured by government troops this year remain starved of humanitarian aid, with the relief agencies helping them for years now unable to reach them.
MAYA GEBEILY 