美国国家公共电台 NPR Months After ISIS, Much Of Iraq's Mosul Is Still Rubble

 

SCOTT SIMON, HOST:

It's been eight months since the battle to force ISIS from the Iraqi city of Mosul. Many areas remain in rubble¹ from U.S. airstrikes and fighting by both sides. Iraq did gather almost $30 billion in pledges for international aid to help rebuild. Most is for huge projects that will take years. NPR's Jane Arraf went back to Mosul, and found reconstruction² badly lacking and residents desperate for help.

(CROSSTALK)

JANE ARRAF, BYLINE³: Samira Sheet and a few of her neighbors have been sitting on a battered⁴ wooden bench on a street full of rubble since early in the day.

(CROSSTALK)

SAMIRA SHEET: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: ...And the day before that and the day before that. They were told by an aid organization that if they registered and brought their documents, someone would come back and give them money. But no one's come, and they don't know the name of the organization.

(CROSSTALK)

SHEET: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: "My house collapsed⁵, and my son is injured. We don't get help from anyone," Sheet tells me. Thousands of homes collapsed here in the old section in airstrikes and mortar⁶ attacks while Iraq and the U.S. were fighting ISIS in Iraq's second-biggest city last year. That was eight months ago. And it looks pretty much the same here as it did when the city was liberated⁷ last July.

(CROSSTALK)

SHEET: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: Streets full of grieving families trying to live in the ruins of houses.

AMER MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: Amer Mohammad, known by Abu Ahmed, is a resident who worked for the health ministry⁸. He knows every home in this neighborhood. Holding his 4-year-old son Yasser by the hand, he takes us on a very grim tour.

(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANGING)

ARRAF: So we're in the Christian⁹ quarter and going into an old house. Oh. Abu Ahmed is showing us - it still really smells awful. He's showing us a pile of charred¹⁰ bones - not completely burned. It looks like one or two people here.

ZIAD ABDUL QADER: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: The homeowner, Ziad Abdul Qader (ph), says the bodies were ISIS fighters. Christians¹¹ and Muslims like him both suffered under ISIS. He says people worried about disease burned the bodies. He's come back to clean up the house. He plans to shovel¹² the bones into a bag and throw it in the trash.

ABDUL QADER: (Through interpreter) People come and spit on the bones. We suffered a lot under ISIS. They took everything from us - our money, our gold, everything. And then they whipped us - the men and the women. They almost beat us to death.

ARRAF: ISIS took away is 24-year-old son last May after finding a banned mobile phone. They haven't heard from him since. Abdul Qader has brought his 11-year-old son Mohammad with him. Mohammad looks silently at the bones.

ABDUL QADER: (Through interpreter) He has panic attacks and nightmares from the airstrikes and the shelling. He's in fourth grade, but he's even forgotten the alphabet. We go over it every day, but he doesn't remember.

ARRAF: Abdul Qader was middle-class. He had a clothing shop in the market, but it's destroyed now. And all the money he'd saved, they spent on food while ISIS controlled the city. He had to borrow the $2 for a taxi from his relative's house across the river.

(SOUNDBITE OF FOOTSTEPS)

ARRAF: We continue through the narrow streets.

So this looks like an earthquake hit. The rubble here is piled up maybe 20 feet. It's covering the entrances to these houses where the roofs have collapsed. There are old tires. And this is where they say there was a house they called the English house.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: They say it was the British Consulate¹³ in the 1950s, very elegant. Like almost everything else, though, it is now a huge pile of smashed stone and broken concrete. Throughout this district of the city, there's no electricity, no running water. Corruption¹⁴ and mismanagement means the Iraqi government struggles to provide those things even in Baghdad.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #3: (Foreign language spoken).

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: (Foreign language spoken).

ARRAF: For the central government, places like Mosul are barely on the radar¹⁵. We passed by people burning wood to keep warm. There's no money for heating fuel. Our guide, Abu Ahmed, points out a home where he buried an elderly man in the garden. He says the man died of illness after being weakened by hunger and dehydration¹⁶.

MOHAMMAD: (Through interpreter) This was one of our Christian brothers. We protected them. We brought them food and water, but they didn't leave - poor people.

ARRAF: At another house, Mohammad Assim and his brothers have been working for weeks to remove the broken concrete from their home. Their 35-year-old sister died here.

UNIDENTIFIED MAN #4: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: He's pointing out where the mortar came from - right through the roof, it looks like. And then the wood is all splintered where it went through the door. And inside is the room where his sister was killed.

MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: Abu Ahmed, who's 53, had a 15-year-old son killed in a mortar strike. We meet dozens of people in the neighborhood. And there literally¹⁷ isn't a single family who hasn't lost someone.

AHLAM ZAIDAN: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: Ahlam Zaidan is standing¹⁸ in the doorway¹⁹ of a damaged house, and she's crying. On three successive days in March, airstrikes and mortars²⁰ killed her husband, two of her sons and her nephew.

ZAIDAN: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: "They died one after the other," she says. She has one child left, Mohannad, who's 15.

(SOUNDBITE OF EXPLOSION)

ARRAF: As we speak, there is the sound of an explosion, an ISIS bomb being detonated by the military. They're still finding them on these streets. The danger from unexploded bombs has chased away young volunteers who were clearing away rubble from people's homes. And it's a big reason that aid agencies that could provide water and fuel and help rebuild aren't coming here. U.N. says it will take years to clear all the explosives. No one here can recall seeing a government official visit.

UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: "ISIS were killers²¹, and the government are thieves," one woman says. Others say the Shiite-led government is neglecting them deliberately²² because they're Sunni, and it thinks they supported ISIS. Abu Ahmed says if they just had a little bit of help, people would do the rest themselves.

MOHAMMAD: (Speaking Arabic).

ARRAF: "We need services, the government to clear the rubble and give us electricity and clean water," he says. "Then we will rebuild with our own hands." Jane Arraf, NPR News, Mosul.

1 rubble   

n.（一堆）碎石，瓦砾

参考例句：

• After the earthquake,it took months to clean up the rubble.地震后，花了数月才清理完瓦砾。
• After the war many cities were full of rubble.战后许多城市到处可见颓垣残壁。

2 reconstruction   

n.重建，再现，复原

参考例句：

• The country faces a huge task of national reconstruction following the war.战后，该国面临着重建家园的艰巨任务。
• In the period of reconstruction,technique decides everything.在重建时期，技术决定一切。

3 byline   

n.署名；v.署名

参考例句：

• His byline was absent as well.他的署名也不见了。
• We wish to thank the author of this article which carries no byline.我们要感谢这篇文章的那位没有署名的作者。

4 battered   

adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损

参考例句：

• He drove up in a battered old car.他开着一辆又老又破的旧车。
• The world was brutally battered but it survived.这个世界遭受了惨重的创伤,但它还是生存下来了。

5 collapsed   

adj.倒塌的

参考例句：

• Jack collapsed in agony on the floor. 杰克十分痛苦地瘫倒在地板上。
• The roof collapsed under the weight of snow. 房顶在雪的重压下突然坍塌下来。

6 mortar   

n.灰浆，灰泥；迫击炮；v.把…用灰浆涂接合

参考例句：

• The mason flushed the joint with mortar.泥工用灰浆把接缝处嵌平。
• The sound of mortar fire seemed to be closing in.迫击炮的吼声似乎正在逼近。

7 liberated   

a.无拘束的，放纵的

参考例句：

• The city was liberated by the advancing army. 军队向前挺进，解放了那座城市。
• The heat brings about a chemical reaction, and oxygen is liberated. 热量引起化学反应，释放出氧气。

8 ministry   

n.(政府的)部；牧师

参考例句：

• They sent a deputation to the ministry to complain.他们派了一个代表团到部里投诉。
• We probed the Air Ministry statements.我们调查了空军部的记录。

9 Christian   

adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒

参考例句：

• They always addressed each other by their Christian name.他们总是以教名互相称呼。
• His mother is a sincere Christian.他母亲是个虔诚的基督教徒。

10 charred   

v.把…烧成炭( char的过去式)；烧焦

参考例句：

• the charred remains of a burnt-out car 被烧焦的轿车残骸
• The intensity of the explosion is recorded on the charred tree trunks. 那些烧焦的树干表明爆炸的强烈。 来自《简明英汉词典》

11 Christians   

n.基督教徒( Christian的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• Christians of all denominations attended the conference. 基督教所有教派的人都出席了这次会议。
• His novel about Jesus caused a furore among Christians. 他关于耶稣的小说激起了基督教徒的公愤。

12 shovel   

n.铁锨，铲子，一铲之量；v.铲，铲出

参考例句：

• He was working with a pick and shovel.他在用镐和铲干活。
• He seized a shovel and set to.他拿起一把铲就干上了。

13 consulate   

n.领事馆

参考例句：

• The Spanish consulate is the large white building opposite the bank.西班牙领事馆是银行对面的那栋高大的白色建筑物。
• The American consulate was a magnificent edifice in the centre of Bordeaux.美国领事馆是位于波尔多市中心的一座宏伟的大厦。

14 corruption   

n.腐败，堕落，贪污

参考例句：

• The people asked the government to hit out against corruption and theft.人民要求政府严惩贪污盗窃。
• The old man reviled against corruption.那老人痛斥了贪污舞弊。

15 radar   

n.雷达，无线电探测器

参考例句：

• They are following the flight of an aircraft by radar.他们正在用雷达追踪一架飞机的飞行。
• Enemy ships were detected on the radar.敌舰的影像已显现在雷达上。

16 dehydration   

n.脱水，干燥

参考例句：

• He died from severe dehydration.他死于严重脱水。
• The eyes are often retracted from dehydration.眼睛常因脱水而凹陷。

17 literally   

adv.照字面意义，逐字地；确实

参考例句：

• He translated the passage literally.他逐字逐句地翻译这段文字。
• Sometimes she would not sit down till she was literally faint.有时候，她不走到真正要昏厥了，决不肯坐下来。

18 standing   

n.持续，地位；adj.永久的，不动的，直立的，不流动的

参考例句：

• After the earthquake only a few houses were left standing.地震过后只有几幢房屋还立着。
• They're standing out against any change in the law.他们坚决反对对法律做任何修改。

19 doorway   

n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径

参考例句：

• They huddled in the shop doorway to shelter from the rain.他们挤在商店门口躲雨。
• Mary suddenly appeared in the doorway.玛丽突然出现在门口。

20 mortars   

n.迫击炮( mortar的名词复数 )；砂浆；房产；研钵

参考例句：

• They could not move their heavy mortars over the swampy ground. 他们无法把重型迫击炮移过那片沼泽地。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Where the hell are his mortars? 他有迫击炮吗？ 来自教父部分

21 killers   

凶手( killer的名词复数 )； 消灭…者； 致命物； 极难的事

参考例句：

• He remained steadfast in his determination to bring the killers to justice. 他要将杀人凶手绳之以法的决心一直没有动摇。
• They were professional killers who did in John. 杀死约翰的这些人是职业杀手。

22 deliberately   

adv.审慎地；蓄意地；故意地

参考例句：

• The girl gave the show away deliberately.女孩故意泄露秘密。
• They deliberately shifted off the argument.他们故意回避这个论点。