SpiegelOnline.
By Andreas Lorenz, Katharina Peters, Marc Pitzke, Ulrike Putz and Carsten Volkery
The Berlin Wall, built 50 years ago this month, may be gone, but modern barriers can still be found around the world. Some are designed to keep people in, others are designed to keep people out while some are simply in place to keep people apart. SPIEGEL ONLINE correspondents profile modern-day walls on five continents.
By Andreas Lorenz, Katharina Peters, Marc Pitzke, Ulrike Putz and Carsten Volkery
The Berlin Wall, built 50 years ago this month, may be gone, but modern barriers can still be found around the world. Some are designed to keep people in, others are designed to keep people out while some are simply in place to keep people apart. SPIEGEL ONLINE correspondents profile modern-day walls on five continents.
In theory, no wall should be impossible to scale. "Show me a 50-foot wall and I'll show you a 51-foot ladder," US Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano once famously quipped about the massive and highly secured border area between the United States and Mexico.
Modern walls in the Middle East, North Africa, Mexico, Northern Ireland and Korea are now more secure than ever before. Multi-layered, six-meter-high wire fences equipped with infrared cameras and motion detectors bar access to the frontline Spanish exclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, autonomous cities located in North Africa. These high-tech ramparts are designed to stop a stream of people making their way from Morocco into Europe.
Such high-tech equipment can also be found on the fortified border between the US and Mexico. In Northern Ireland, meanwhile, the "Last Wall in Europe" divides entire districts, officially to prevent rioting between radical Catholics and Protestants. Other defenses, like the Israeli separation fence in the Holy Land or the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ) between North and South Korea, are permanent reminders of ongoing conflicts.
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