US President Donald Trump says “100%” of the Islamic State group's territory has now been taken over, even though local commanders with the US allies, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), maintain total victory will be declared within a week.
As the battle draws to a close, the BBC's Quentin Sommerville met some of those leaving the group's last stronghold, Baghouz.
Hamza Jasim al-Ali's world is small and terrible. He hasn't moved far in life, living always along the same 40km (25 mile) stretch on the banks of the Euphrates.
His journey, still without end, took him from al-Qaim in Iraq, across the border to Syria and into the dark centre of what was the Islamic State group's nightmare caliphate. He has seen more of life and death than any child of 12 should.
Now he is far from his river, sitting on the desert floor in a wind-whipped tent, alone – apart from an elderly woman, who barely knows him. His leg is broken, but healing, and he smiles as I ask him questions.
I asked him what life was like inside.
“It was good,” he says, smiling again. “Less food and water and a lot of fighting. It was heaving fighting.”
