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Raising barriers
A New Age of Walls · Episode 1
Coming Oct. 12
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.
Around the world
Conflicting perspectives
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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.”
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
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.
Nationalist sentiment
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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.”
United States
A controversial proposal
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DONALD TRUMP Republican nominee for president of the United States
“Build that wall! Build that wall! Build that wall!”
In the U.S.
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.
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.
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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.”
Del Rio, Texas
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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.
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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.”
Reynosa, Mexico
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In Europe
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.
Idomeni, Greece
The gate to Europe
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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.”
Idomeni, Greece
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Idomeni, Greece
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An unstoppable movement
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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.”
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.
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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.”
Gevgelija, Macedonia
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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.
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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.”
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In Israel
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.
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.
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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.”
Holot, Israel
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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.
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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.”
Jerusalem, Israel
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West Bank
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Eliat, Israel
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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
From eight countries across three continents, this series examines the divisions between countries and peoples through interwoven words, video and sound.
Raising barriers
Episode 1 · Oct. 12
The world has more border barriers than at any time in modern history. The rise of walls marks an increasing wariness of globalization.
Watch again
Fenced out
Episode 2 · Oct. 14
The system of fences Europe raised to stem the migrant crisis is a case study of a vital question: Are walls enough?
Watch this episode
Concrete divisions
Episode 3 · Oct. 17
A journey along the U.S.-Mexico border shows what it would take to complete the wall — and what the impacts might be.
Watch this episode
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