Battle Lines Inside the bloody work of tracking war crimes from space
Nov 12, 2025
Nathaniel Raymond, Executive Director of Yale's Humanitarian Research Lab, discusses how satellite imagery is revolutionizing the tracking of war crimes in Sudan, detailing methods like calibrating body sizes and identifying kill boxes. Shashwat Saraf from the Norwegian Refugee Council provides harrowing updates on the humanitarian crisis in Tawila, including daily displacements and dire famine conditions. Together, they shed light on the intersection of technology and humanitarian efforts in one of the world's worst crises.
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Ground Photos Calibrated Space Evidence
- Nathaniel Raymond recounts using ground photos from El Janaina to calibrate what a human body looks like from space at 1.3–2 meters.
- That calibration enabled them to identify and measure bodies in later satellite imagery over Al-Fashir.
Blood Shows Up As Subtle Red Signals
- Raymond describes spotting subtle red discoloration from bleeding near bodies and technical gun mounts in satellite images.
- He used color-signal math to convert faint signals into a reliable indicator of hemorrhage near victims.
Validate Algorithms With Red Teaming
- Always pair algorithmic detection with human manual concurrence and adversarial red-teaming.
- Validate findings by challenging them with alternate hypotheses before publication.