A surge of terrified civilians one day, now none. Mine fields along a border will do that.<br /><br /> The Syrian civil war has cut off the towns of Jarabulus and Karkamis from each other.<br /><br /> The first, in Syria, has been in the hands of the radical Islamic State movement since hard fighting with the YPG Kurdish militia.<br /><br /> The other is barely 500 metres away, in neighbouring Turkey.<br /><br /> 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.<br /><br /> 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. <br /><br /> When things in Syria went badly wrong, Ali Yilmaz’s family in Karkamis, living right next to the border, took in dozens of refugees.<br /><br /> 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
