This browser is not fully supported. Please update for the best experience.
Logo of The Washington Post
Loading

Scroll down to continue.
Presentation includes sound.

Raising barriers

A New Age of Walls · Episode 1

Coming Oct. 12

Published Oct. 12, 2016

A generation ago, globalization shrank the world. Nations linked by trade and technology began to erase old boundaries. But now barriers are rising again, driven by waves of migration, spillover from wars and the growing threat of terrorism.

Published Oct. 12, 2016

About this series

From eight countries across three continents, this series examines the divisions between countries and peoples through interwoven words, video and sound.

Loading

Around the world

Conflicting perspectives

Tap for volume

Show transcript

LJUBINKA BRASHNARSKA UNCHR Spokesman in Macedonia

“In my opinion, fences mean fear.”

YOSSI TZUR Father of victim in a terrorist attack in Haifa, Israel

“The Israeli government didn’t want to do a fence. And she was forced.”

ELOISA TAMEZ Landowner in Brownsville, Tex.

“I am not free. In the land of the free, I am not free to move in my land.”

subhead-decoration

The numbers are clear: In 2015, work started on more new barriers around the world than at any other point in modern history. There are now 63 borders where walls or fences separate neighboring countries.

63

60

50

40

Total number of borders with barriers, by year:

30

20

10

0

1945

1989

2001

2016

The number of barriers increased

modestly after World War II until the fall

of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

After Sept. 11,

2001, barrier-building spiked.

63

60

50

Total number of borders

with barriers, by year:

40

30

20

10

0

’45

’89

’01

’16

The number of barriers increased modestly after World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989. After Sept. 11, 2001, barrier-building spiked.

63

60

50

40

Total number of borders

with barriers, by year:

30

20

10

0

1945

1989

2001

2016

The number of barriers increased

modestly after World War II until the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.

After Sept. 11,

2001, barriers spiked.

In many ways, the barrier-building is being driven by fear.

Most of the new walls are being erected within the European Union, which until recently was nearly borderless. Britain is going further, rolling up its bridges to the continent by voting to exit the E.U. Intended to counter migrants and terrorist attacks, these moves are not limited to Europe. In the Middle East, Tunisia is erecting a desert barrier with lawless Libya to insulate itself from unrest and an Islamic State-led insurgency.

In Asia, India and Burma are encircling Bangladesh with hundreds of miles of razor wire to block migrants and counter religious extremism.

Today, barriers on these 63 borders divide nations across four continents.

In the Americas and Europe

Each yellow line represents a border barrier

U.S.

U.K.

NORWAY

AUSTRIA

LATVIA

MEXICO

RUSSIA

GUATEMALA

SLOVENIA

UKRAINE

HUNG.

CRO.

ROM.

MOLD.

SERBIA

MACEDONIA

BULGARIA

GREECE

TURKEY

CYPRUS

In Asia

SOUTH

KOREA

KAZAK.

KYRGYZ.

NORTH

KOREA

TURKM.

UZBEKISTAN

HONG

KONG

AFGHANISTAN

CHINA

TURKEY

IRAN

PAKISTAN

MACAO

INDIA

BURMA

BANGLADESH

THAILAND

MALAYSIA

BRUNEI

In Africa and The Middle East

SPAIN

TUNISIA

LEBANON

SYRIA

MOROC.

LIBYA

ISRAEL

JORDAN

EGYPT

ALG.

WEST.

SAHARA

WEST

BANK

GAZA

KUWAIT

IRAQ

ANGOLA

NAMIBIA

KENIA

SOMALIA

UAE

S.ARABIA

BOTSWANA

ZIMBAB.

MOZAM.

OMAN

S. AFRICA

YEMEN

In the Americas and Europe.

Each yellow line represents a border barrier.

U.S.

U.K.

NORWAY

AUSTRIA

LATVIA

MEXICO

RUSSIA

In Asia.

GUATEMALA

SLOVENIA

UKRAINE

SOUTH

KOREA

HUNG.

CRO.

ROM.

MOLD.

NORTH

KOREA

KAZAK.

KYRGYZ.

SERBIA

HONG

KONG

TURKM.

UZBEKISTAN

MACEDONIA

BULGARIA

CHINA

GREECE

TURKEY

MACAO

AFGHANISTAN

CYPRUS

INDIA

TURKEY

IRAN

PAKISTAN

BURMA

SPAIN

TUNISIA

LEBANON

SYRIA

BANGLADESH

MOROC.

LIBYA

ISRAEL

JORDAN

THAILAND

EGYPT

ALG.

WEST.

SAHARA

WEST

BANK

MALAYSIA

BRUNEI

GAZA

KUWAIT

In Africa.

IRAQ

ANGOLA

NAMIBIA

KENIA

SOMALIA

UAE

S.ARABIA

BOTSWANA

ZIMBAB.

MOZAM.

OMAN

S. AFRICA

YEMEN

Note: Graphics include non-mobile barriers designed to seal a border that have fixed masonry or concrete foundations. Source: Elisabeth Vallet, Zoe Barry and Josselyn Guillarmou (Raoul Dandurand Chair of Strategic and Diplomatic Studies - University of Quebec at Montreal).

This new age of barriers is not just about chain links and concrete. It also reflects the rise of populist politicians. The effectiveness of their nationalist rhetoric suggests that even as globalization was working its magic on trade, mobility and investment, a seditious resentment was brewing among those left behind.

Loading

Nationalist sentiment

Tap for volume

Show transcript

BORIS JOHNSON British foreign secretary

“I think we should take the chance now, as a country, to take back control.”

MARINE LE PEN President of the National Front party in France

“Of course we do not equate all migrants with terrorists.”

“However, what I denounced in September in this parliament, was that the infiltration by jihadists in the middle of this wave of migrants is a reality.”

DONALD TUSK European Council president

“To all potential illegal economic migrants: Wherever you are from, do not come to Europe.”

Loading

United States

A controversial proposal

Tap for volume

Show transcript

DONALD TRUMP Republican nominee for president of the United States

“Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!”

In the U.S.

subhead-decoration

In the United States, Donald Trump’s call to build a wall is dividing Americans and worrying anxious migrants, nowhere more so than in dusty cantinas and lively migrant shelters in the arid reaches of the U.S.-Mexico border region.

That international border stretches 1,989 miles, but for now fences line only about 700 miles. The idea of building a barrier is not new; the first 14-mile stretch, jutting eastward from the Pacific Ocean, dates to 1993.

CA

Segments of border

with some kind of fence

San Diego

AZ

NM

Tijuana

Nogales

El Paso

Segments of border

with no fence

Ciudad

Juarez

Nogales

TX

Del Rio

Laredo

Eagle Pass

McAllen

Brownsville

Reynosa

Matamoros

100 miles

Segments of border

with some kind of fence

Segments

with no fence

U.S.

CA

AZ

S.Diego

NM

Nogales

TX

El Paso

Tijuana

C. Juarez

Del Rio

Laredo

Brownsville

100 miles

Segments of border

with some kind of fence

U.S.

CA

AZ

Segments of border

with no fence

San Diego

NM

Nogales

El Paso

TX

Del Rio

Eagle Pass

Laredo

McAllen

Brownsville

100 miles

CA

Segments of border

with some kind of fence

San Diego

AZ

NM

Tijuana

Nogales

El Paso

Segments of border

with no fence

Ciudad

Juarez

TX

Migrant flow has

moved east as the fence has gone up.

Del Rio

Laredo

Eagle Pass

McAllen

Brownsville

Reynosa

Matamoros

100 miles

Today most of the crossings

happen in the Rio Grande Valley.

Segments of border

with some kind of fence

Segments

with no fence

U.S.

CA

AZ

S.Diego

NM

Nogales

TX

El Paso

Tijuana

C. Juarez

Del Rio

Laredo

Migrant flow has

moved east as the

fence has gone up.

Today most of the crossings

happen in the Rio Grande Valley.

Brownsville

Segments of border

with some kind of fence

U.S.

CA

AZ

Segments of border

with no fence

San Diego

NM

Nogales

El Paso

TX

Migrant flow has

moved east as the fence has gone up.

Del Rio

Eagle Pass

Laredo

McAllen

Brownsville

100 miles

Today most of the crossings

happen in the Rio Grande Valley.

Source: Center for Investigative Reporting, Openstreetmap.org

A majority of Americans do not support the idea of a border-long wall. But opinions are sharply divided along partisan lines, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center. Younger generations are less likely to favor a wall, while non-Hispanic whites are more than twice as likely to favor it as blacks or Hispanics.

Loading

Del Rio, Texas

Losing our country

Dinks Cafe is two miles from the border in Del Rio, Tex. While some areas of the U.S.-Mexico border have been fenced, this area remains open.

Tap for volume

Show transcript

DARRELL SKINNER Resident of Del Rio, Tex.

“We're only, as the crow flies, three miles from Mexico.”

“The only thing between us and them is a river, and they know how to swim.”

“I think if we don't do something about the border immediately, this country will not be in existence in the next 50 years.”

“Trump is the guy that's going to take care of that, and if he needs help with that wall I'll help him build it.”

CHERYL HOWARD Owner, Dinks Cafe

“Oh, I got opinions on that one.”

“I don't know. I think they need to . . .”

“I got to make sure there ain't no Mexicans in here.”

“We need to keep them over there.”

BYRON HEDGES Dinks Cafe regular

“If Donald Trump went and flew the whole border, just in Texas you would realize it's just unfeasible.”

“It's too rough a country out West when you get into Big Bend and all that area. I mean, it's mountain goat country.”

“You're not going to find a fence company that's going to build a fence out there, I don't think. I mean, it would be hard.”

Loading

Del Rio, Texas

Tap for volume

Loading

Reynosa, Mexico

“They won’t stop us”

Fences on the border have pushed untold thousands of Mexicans and Central Americans to take riskier routes. One of them is Ramon Reyes, a Honduran migrant who is on a quest for work and is running from violence in his home country. He is biding his time at the Senda de Vida migrant shelter in Reynosa, Mexico, waiting for the water levels to go down so he can stage a dangerous crossing of the Rio Grande.

Tap for volume

Show transcript

RAMON REYES Honduran migrant in Reynosa, Mexico

“Look, my opinion about fences, about those obstacles they’re placing, is that, no.”

“No matter how many barriers they may place, they won’t stop us.”

Loading

Reynosa, Mexico

Tap for volume

In Europe

subhead-decoration

But it is in Europe, not the American Southwest, where the cauldron of migration has truly begun to boil over.

In a region where borders were being erased, more new barriers suddenly went up than anywhere else on Earth. It happened as 2015 saw a rush of more than a million migrants — the vast majority fleeing the wars in Syria and Iraq — taking to rough seas and scaling mountainous terrain to find sanctuary in Europe.

At first, the newcomers arrived largely unhindered. But then fear took hold, driven in part by terrorist attacks involving militants posing as migrants as well as crimes involving asylum seekers. Hungary began building a fence in June 2015, and it was not long before others followed suit. By early this year, Austria and other nations had banded together to halt migrant transit through the Balkans, and the E.U. signed a deal with Turkey to stop asylum seekers from crossing the Aegean Sea.

Schengen area, passport not required to cross common borders

Fence/surveillance along the border

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

Spielfeld

Control points with some miles of fence

SLOVENIA

CROATIA

SERBIA

BOSNIA&

HERZEGOVINA

BULGARIA

TURKEY

MACEDONIA

ITALY

Idomeni

GREECE

100 miles

Reinforced fence/

surveillance along the border

Schengen area, passport not required to cross

common borders

Control points with some miles of fence

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

SLOV.

CROATIA

SERBIA

BULGARIA

MACEDONIA

ITALY

Idomeni

TURKEY

100 miles

GREECE

Schengen area, passport not required to cross common borders

Schengen area, passport not required to cross common borders

Reinforced fence/ surveillance along the border

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

Control points with some miles of fence

Spielfeld

SLOVENIA

CROATIA

ITALY

SERBIA

BULGARIA

MACEDONIA

Idomeni

GREECE

TURKEY

100 miles

Schengen area, passport not required to cross common borders

Fence/surveillance along the border

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

Spielfeld

Control points with some

miles of fence

SLOVENIA

CROATIA

SERBIA

BOSNIA&

HERZEGOVINA

BULGARIA

TURKEY

MACEDONIA

ITALY

Idomeni

Border enforcement pushed migrant paths west.

GREECE

100 miles

Now that the Balkan routes are closed, Austria fears an increasing flow of people from Italy.

Reinforced fence/

surveillance along the border

Schengen area, passport not required to cross

common borders

Control points with some miles of fence

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

SLOV.

CROATIA

SERBIA

BULGARIA

MACEDONIA

ITALY

TURKEY

Border enforcement

pushed migrant paths

west. Austria fears

an increasing flow

of people from Italy.

GREECE

Schengen area, passport not required to cross common borders

Reinforced fence/ surveillance along the border

AUSTRIA

HUNGARY

Control points with some miles of fence

Spielfeld

SLOVENIA

CROATIA

ITALY

SERBIA

BULGARIA

MACEDONIA

Idomeni

GREECE

TURKEY

100 miles

Source: Frontex 

The combined moves left nearly 60,000 migrants trapped in Greece, with the single largest bottleneck forming in Idomeni, a border town that formerly served as a waystation for those heading deeper into Europe. Before the camp was cleared in May and the migrants relocated to other corners of Greece, as many as 14,000 desperate asylum seekers were living in squalid conditions there, some in tents strung along the very barbed wire fence that barred their way.

Loading

Idomeni, Greece

The gate to Europe

Tap for volume

Show transcript

WOMAN SINGING

“I became a guest of this camp until I became humiliated in it”

“What is this luck that I have, there is no worse luck”

“Oh life, nothing you’ve given us has been good”

QUSAI AL MALIKH Syrian refugee at Idomeni refugee camp, Greece

“There is nothing that can describe how we are feeling here.”

“I’m sitting here by the border. The border has become a drying rack where women are putting their laundry.”

“I'm from the countryside near Damascus, called Doma City, Eastern Ghota.”

“The situation was very bad.”

“As the whole world knows, the government has used every kind of weapon on us. Every day there is a new massacre.”

“People die every day. There is no food, no medicines and no doctors.”

Loading

Idomeni, Greece

Tap for volume

Loading

Idomeni, Greece

Tap for volume

Loading

An unstoppable movement

Tap for volume

Show transcript

CHRIS BOIAN Spokesperson, U.N. refugee agency

“Today we are seeing, again, efforts to stop people in desperate need by erecting walls, by erecting razor wire fences. The erection of walls, the closing and slamming and locking of doors, the physical prevention of people from moving, from place to place in a legal and orderly and controlled and dignified manner, doesn't mean the people aren't going to try to move. Their lives are at risk, of course they're going to try to move.”

“What happens when the walls goes up of course is that they then seek alternative means. And they turn to smugglers and they turn to the most dangerous precarious means of passing from one place to another imaginable.”

Loading

Seeking alternative routes

Algerian Issad Zakaria, 18, who says he is in search of job opportunities in Germany, attempted to cross the border near Idomeni through a forest infested with criminal gangs and heavily patrolled by police.

Tap for volume

Show transcript

ISSAD ZAKARIA Algerian migrant

“When we entered last time, they caught us here. We were walking. They chased us with vehicles.”

“They caught us in the first village, the police. I said, "no problem, officer." But then they started beating us for an hour and they didn't want to stop.”

“They came behind us, beat us and then put us back here.”

“This is not Gaza, as you can see, this is Macedonia.”

“Tomorrow, God willing, I’ll be back in Macedonia so I can go to Serbia and then Austria and then to Germany.”

Loading

Gevgelija, Macedonia

Tap for volume

Loading

Brenner Pass, Italy

Fears arise

Walls can also fan the flames of old tensions. In the Alps, Italy and Austria have jostled over the ancient Brenner Pass, where Austria says a fence may be needed to halt the flow of African migrants into the heart of Europe. Italy has expressed outrage, saying that a fence would severely hinder trucking and trade in one of Europe’s busiest corridors.

Tap for volume

Show transcript

RUDI FEDERSPIEL Right-wing politician who lives near Brenner Pass

“Nobody here in Austria wants to close the border. We don’t want to build a fence between the two nations.”

“But if this stream, this crowd, these thousands of North Africans are coming from the south, we must close.”

“You know, it's a different culture. Mostly, these people are Muslims. We are Roman Catholics here.”

Loading

Tap for volume

In Israel

subhead-decoration

Few borders on Earth are as secure as Israel’s, a response to one of the world’s most intractable disputes. As the occupier of land claimed by the Palestinians, Israel began construction in 2002 of a West Bank barrier that it described as necessary to ensure its own security.

Fearing spillover from the Syrian civil war, Israel has also replaced an old, broken-down fence in the Golan Heights — so low that a goat could hop over it — with a fortified “smart fence” featuring concertina wire and razor wire, touch sensors, motion detectors, infrared cameras, and ground radar. It is at work on two additional walls: an underground barrier in the south to guard against tunnels from the Gaza Strip and another in the east, along the border with Jordan.

When these walls are finished, Israel will be completely fenced in.

Segments of barrier

being improved

Segments of land border

with some kind of barrier

Golan

Heights

 

No barrier

Haifa

Disputed territory

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

Jerusalem

Dead

Sea

Mediterranean Sea

GAZA

20 miles

Holot

Eilat

Segments of barrier

being improved

Segments of land border

with some kind of barrier

No barrier

Golan

Heights

 

Disputed territory

Haifa

Mediterranean

Sea

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

Jerusalem

Dead

Sea

GAZA

Holot

20 miles

Eilat

Segments of barrier

being improved

Segments of land border

with some kind of barrier

Golan

Heights

 

No barrier

Haifa

Disputed territory

WEST

BANK

Tel Aviv

Jerusalem

Dead

Sea

Mediterranean Sea

GAZA

20 miles

Holot

Eilat

Source: B’tselem, openstreetmap.org, staff reports 

Palestinians have responded with charges that many of the barriers amount to an Israeli land grab and are another sign of ethnic and religious oppression that have left them in economic and social despair. Lesser known, though, is that the Israelis have also spent $350 million building another fence with Egypt that serves a completely different purpose: to stop the flow of African migrants, most of them impoverished Muslims and Christians.

Loading

Holot, Israel

Fenced in

Thousands of migrants now live in a detention center in the Negev desert in southern Israel. Osman Mohammed Ali, a Sudanese refugee from Darfur who was living in Israel, was given two options: leave the country or go to the Holot detention center. Rather than risk his life returning to Africa, he chose the desert facility.

Tap for volume

Show transcript

OSMAN MOHAMMED ALI Refugee at the Holot Detention Center

“Some people, they crossed the Mediterranean. They went through Libya.”

“And some of us, we tried to choose the other way. That we can come to Israel through the Sinai Desert.”

“I'm from Darfur, in western Sudan and the genocide that's been committed since 2003 until today, it is ongoing genocide until today.”

“We are generally fleeing.”

“Coming out from that genocide, I saw with my eyes our sisters, and fathers, mothers being raped in front of our eyes.”

“To build a fence in order to keep some people away, and those people are escaping from atrocities, then it is inhumane treatment.”

Loading

Holot, Israel

Tap for volume

Loading

Conflicting narratives

Ask Israelis and Palestinians about the walls that divide them and you hear alternate versions of reality — such as those from Danny Tirza, a retired Israeli army colonel, and Abdul Kareem al-Saadi, a Palestinian activist. For now, it is the wall-builders, such as Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who hold the upper hand.

Tap for volume

Show transcript

DANNY TIRZA Architect of Israel's West Bank barrier

“As we have the Jewish values, we are not shooting everyone that tries to cross.”

“And we had to find a way how to block our borders from people that want to enter it illegally.”

“Some of them for these reasons, but most of them for security reasons.”

ABDUL KAREEM AL SAADI Palestinian human rights activist, B'Tselem

“This wall prevents convergence, prevents us from knowing and understanding each other.”

“It's not a wall for security.”

“A small kid can jump off the wall or dig a hole under the wall and solve the problem of the millions spent.”

“I don't think that the wall is a solution.”

BENJAMIN NETANYAHU Prime Minister of Israel

“Eventually, in the State of Israel, as I see it, there will be a fence that surrounds it all.”

“In the area that we live in, we must defend ourselves from the predators.”

Loading

Jerusalem, Israel

Tap for volume

Loading

West Bank

Tap for volume

Loading

Eliat, Israel

Tap for volume

Loading

Tap for volume

Credits

A project by Samuel Granados, Zoeann Murphy, Kevin Schaul and Anthony Faiola

Editing

Kat Downs, Reem Akkad and Douglas Jehl

Additional reporting

Joshua Partlow, Stephanie Kirchner, William Booth and Ruth Eglash

Additional footage

AP, France 24, Front National, Reuters, Sky News, YouTube channel of the Prime Minister of Israel

Special Thanks

Elinda Labropoulou, Irene Nasser, Mahnaz Rezaie, Elisabeth Vallet

Scroll down to continue