An estimated 4 million children have been born in Syria since 2011, meaning half the country’s children have grown up only knowing war. It is details like this that are lost in most headlines about Syria, especially those generated by President Donald Trump’s abrupt announcement last month to withdraw American forces.

To the many Egyptians who took to the streets in January 2011 to bring down former President Hosni Mubarak, Cairo is full of reminders of the country’s post-revolution failures. That charged urban geography frames the harshness of present-day Egypt under Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi’s unprecedented repression.