Ghaith Abdul-Ahad

When at the end of May protesters in Istanbul began their occupation of Gezi Park, to stop its planned transformation into a mall, they also built barricades on the streets surrounding it. Some of the barricades were ad hoc structures: plant pots, rubbish bins, paving slabs and an occasional street sign, assembled hastily at night and lost to the police in the morning. Others were more permanent: urban fortifications made from burned-out vehicles, metal sheeting propped up against rubble from construction sites, reinforced by iron rods.

In the cramped living room of a run-down flat near the Aleppo frontline, two Syrian rebels sat opposite each other. The one on the left was stout, broad-shouldered, with a neat beard that looked as though it had been outlined in sharp pencil around his throat and cheeks. His shirt and trousers were immaculately pressed and he wore brand-new military webbing – the expensive Turkish kind, not the Syrian knock-off. The rebel sitting opposite him was younger, gaunt and tired-looking. His hands were filthy and his trousers caked in mud and diesel.

After three years of drought thousands of colourful tents made with sticks and branches wrapped in plastic sheets and bits of cloth have sprung up among Mogadishu’s destroyed buildings. Over the summer and early autumn tens of thousands of starving Somalis entered the city. Now the refugees fill the shells of long-defunct ministries, gather in the shade of the roofless cathedral and stand under the parliament building like worshippers seeking a miracle. They appear in the streets in tattered clothing, holding bundles on their oversized heads, carrying yellow jerrycans and babies on their backs.