The Big Story

Iraq-Syria Wall

  • Image may contain Human Person Rubble and Porch
    Andrea DiCenzo
    01
    A member of the SDF pauses in a destroyed building in Hajin.
  • This image may contain Vehicle Transportation Automobile Car Human Person Train and Offroad
    Andrea DiCenzo
    02
    The air in both countries is tinged with metal, the essence of bullets and exposed rebar that will linger for some while, whether or not there is a wall, whether or not ISIS departs or remains.
  • three female soldiers on a rooftop filled with bullet holes.
    Andrea DiCenzo
    03
    Rashé Darbasiyah and two female fighters with the YPJ, or Women’s Protection Units within the SDF, relax between tactical movements within ten miles of the border. “Right now the fighting has stopped,” Darbasiyah says.
  • Image may contain Demolition Animal and Bird
    Andrea DiCenzo
    04
    Artillery or airstrike craters in Hajin, Syria, stipple the road to the Islamic State’s final redoubt on the banks of the Euphrates River.
  • family standing in front of and on the second floor or a blasted structure.
    Andrea DiCenzo
    05
    Civilians who have returned to the village of Hajin. The village was liberated from Islamic State rule in earlier this year.
  • Image may contain Rubble Ground Human Person Soil Nature and Outdoors
    06
    [Women gather rocks from an abandoned neighbor’s home](https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44214/preludes-56d22338dc954) to build a new wall around their courtyard.
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