A surge of terrified civilians one day, now none. Mine fields along a border will do that.
The Syrian civil war has cut off the towns of Jarabulus and Karkamis from each other.
The first, in Syria, has been in the hands of the radical Islamic State movement since hard fighting with the YPG Kurdish militia.
The other is barely 500 metres away, in neighbouring Turkey.
Turkey shares 950 km of border with Syria, but it does not follow any natural barrier, such as river or mountain. It is a line on the map, drawn after the First World War.
From trade and smuggling, which became part of normal life after a century, the families of Jarabulus and Karkamis have enduring links with each other.
When things in Syria went badly wrong, Ali Yilmaz’s family in Karkamis, living right next to the border, took in dozens of refugees.
Yilmaz told us: “We are directly affected by the events in Syria. Those who flee are human beings. They are just like we are. They escape from the cruelty of t
