2006年VOA标准英语-Lebanese City Stages Second Mass Burial

By Challiss McDonough
Tyre, Lebanon
29 July 2006

The three hospitals in the southern Lebanese city of Tyre on Saturday held their second mass burial since the start of the conflict between Israel and Hezbollah militants² in Lebanon. Thirty coffins⁴ were lowered into a single grave, because the morgues cannot hold any more bodies.

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Lebanese soldiers carry the bodies of victims in simple plywood coffins to be laid in a mass grave in the southern port city of Tyre 
  
Many of the dead buried on Saturday come from villages in the countryside surrounding Tyre. It is too dangerous now for families to return to their towns to bury their loved ones at home, as tradition dictates⁵. The war has forced some 750,000 Lebanese people to flee their homes, and it has also displaced the dead, at least until the bombing is over.

The bodies of two elderly women arrived at the government hospital just hours before the burial, one still wrapped in a bloodstained blanket. Red Cross medics removed them from the ambulance, and wrapped them in sheets of thick black plastic.

They bound the bodies with tape, and wrote the names of the dead women on the tape in black marker. They carried the bodies to a large truck, and stacked them on top of other black-wrapped corpses⁶ inside.

Everyone wore surgical⁷ masks or respirators to protect against the overpowering stench of decaying flesh. Some of the bodies had been in the truck for more than a week.

The ones on the bottom of the pile were beginning to liquefy. One was covered in maggots.

Dr. Hassan Daher said the morgues have simply run out of room. "We can't preserve them, and there are no places in the refrigerator. That is why we should temporarily bury them. After that, their families will take them home," he said.

This is the second mass burial in Tyre since the bombing started, but Dr. Daher says it will probably not be the last.

Only a few of the families of the dead attended the temporary burial ceremony. Amina Baalbek went to bury her mother, who died in an airstrike three days earlier. Surrounded by her grieving and angry daughters, she said she still has other relatives trapped in their village, unable to get out.

She says, "If [President] Bush had an atom of pity in him, he would arrange for just a three-hour ceasefire, long enough to get those other people out."

The mass burial took place as U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice returned to the Middle East to continue talks on a solution to the crisis. Earlier negotiations⁸ in Rome broke down, without achieving agreement on a ceasefire. The United States has resisted international pressure to call for an immediate⁹ cease-fire, saying the long-term causes of violence in the region must be addressed. Secretary of State Rice has called for a sustainable ceasefire.

The Shi'ite cleric who presided over the burial, Sheikh Akil Zeineddine, has little faith in the U.S. mediation¹⁰ efforts. He noted¹¹ that Washington expedited a delivery of precision-guided bombs to Israel after the war started. "They sent a bomb for the Israelis, and they sent some food for us? We don't need their food. Don't send that bomb to kill us, to feed us later, with that. We don't need it. And I send my message to the American people, I love the American people, I respect the American people. Always. Not the government. I'm sorry.... Thirty years, we are under invasion, from the Israelis with American weapons," he said.

The director of the Jebel Amal Hospital, Ahmed Mroue, said the international community must shoulder some of the responsibility for the vast humanitarian¹² crisis in southern Lebanon, and for the ever-growing number of civilian¹³ casualties like those being buried in front of him. "I think that the government of America and Europe and... the democratic countries, they have a very big responsibility for what happened here in south Lebanon. Because we are not fighting. We are civilians¹⁴. We only want to live, no more. We are not Hezbollah. We are not soldiers," he said.

Israel's offensive started when the militant¹ group Hezbollah, which has its strongholds in southern Lebanon, kidnapped two Israeli soldiers and killed eight others in a July 12th raid in Israel.

At the gravesite, soldiers and doctors, working together, carried the bodies one-by-one from the truck. They laid them in rough-hewn wooden coffins and then nailed the white lids in place.

There were 30 coffins in all, five of them child-sized. Someone had placed a pink flower on top of the smallest coffin³, for a baby just one day old.

The coffins were turned so the heads were facing Mecca, and the sheikh began the funeral blessing¹⁵.

And then, one by one, soldiers carried the coffins over to a long trench¹⁶, and laid them side-by-side, each with a name and a number handwritten on its white lid.

A bulldozer shoveled¹⁷ piles of earth over them, and they were buried together.

1 militant   

adj.激进的，好斗的；n.激进分子，斗士

参考例句：

• Some militant leaders want to merge with white radicals.一些好斗的领导人要和白人中的激进派联合。
• He is a militant in the movement.他在那次运动中是个激进人物。

2 militants   

激进分子，好斗分子( militant的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The militants have been sporadically fighting the government for years. 几年来，反叛分子一直对政府实施零星的战斗。
• Despite the onslaught, Palestinian militants managed to fire off rockets. 尽管如此，巴勒斯坦的激进分子仍然发射导弹。

3 coffin   

n.棺材，灵柩

参考例句：

• When one's coffin is covered,all discussion about him can be settled.盖棺论定。
• The coffin was placed in the grave.那口棺材已安放到坟墓里去了。

4 coffins   

n.棺材( coffin的名词复数 )；使某人早亡[死，完蛋，垮台等]之物

参考例句：

• The shop was close and hot, and the atmosphere seemed tainted with the smell of coffins. 店堂里相当闷热，空气仿佛被棺木的味儿污染了。 来自辞典例句
• Donate some coffins to the temple, equal to the number of deaths. 到寺庙里，捐赠棺材盒给这些死者吧。 来自电影对白

5 dictates   

n.命令，规定，要求( dictate的名词复数 )v.大声讲或读( dictate的第三人称单数 )；口授；支配；摆布

参考例句：

• Convention dictates that a minister should resign in such a situation. 依照常规部长在这种情况下应该辞职。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• He always follows the dictates of common sense. 他总是按常识行事。 来自《简明英汉词典》

6 corpses   

n.死尸，尸体( corpse的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• The living soldiers put corpses together and burned them. 活着的战士把尸体放在一起烧了。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• Overhead, grayish-white clouds covered the sky, piling up heavily like decaying corpses. 天上罩满了灰白的薄云，同腐烂的尸体似的沉沉的盖在那里。 来自汉英文学 - 中国现代小说

7 surgical   

adj.外科的，外科医生的，手术上的

参考例句：

• He performs the surgical operations at the Red Cross Hospital.他在红十字会医院做外科手术。
• All surgical instruments must be sterilised before use.所有的外科手术器械在使用之前，必须消毒。

8 negotiations   

协商( negotiation的名词复数 )； 谈判； 完成（难事）； 通过

参考例句：

• negotiations for a durable peace 为持久和平而进行的谈判
• Negotiations have failed to establish any middle ground. 谈判未能达成任何妥协。

9 immediate   

adj.立即的；直接的，最接近的；紧靠的

参考例句：

• His immediate neighbours felt it their duty to call.他的近邻认为他们有责任去拜访。
• We declared ourselves for the immediate convocation of the meeting.我们主张立即召开这个会议。

10 mediation   

n.调解

参考例句：

• The dispute was settled by mediation of the third country. 这场争端通过第三国的斡旋而得以解决。
• The dispute was settled by mediation. 经调解使争端得以解决。

11 noted   

adj.著名的，知名的

参考例句：

• The local hotel is noted for its good table.当地的那家酒店以餐食精美而著称。
• Jim is noted for arriving late for work.吉姆上班迟到出了名。

12 humanitarian   

n.人道主义者，博爱者，基督凡人论者

参考例句：

• She has many humanitarian interests and contributes a lot to them.她拥有很多慈善事业，并作了很大的贡献。
• The British government has now suspended humanitarian aid to the area.英国政府现已暂停对这一地区的人道主义援助。

13 civilian   

adj.平民的，民用的，民众的

参考例句：

• There is no reliable information about civilian casualties.关于平民的伤亡还没有确凿的信息。
• He resigned his commission to take up a civilian job.他辞去军职而从事平民工作。

14 civilians   

平民，百姓( civilian的名词复数 )； 老百姓

参考例句：

• the bloody massacre of innocent civilians 对无辜平民的血腥屠杀
• At least 300 civilians are unaccounted for after the bombing raids. 遭轰炸袭击之后，至少有300名平民下落不明。

15 blessing   

n.祈神赐福；祷告；祝福，祝愿

参考例句：

• The blessing was said in Hebrew.祷告用了希伯来语。
• A double blessing has descended upon the house.双喜临门。

16 trench   

n./v.(挖)沟，(挖)战壕

参考例句：

• The soldiers recaptured their trench.兵士夺回了战壕。
• The troops received orders to trench the outpost.部队接到命令在前哨周围筑壕加强防卫。

17 shoveled   

vt.铲，铲出（shovel的过去式与过去分词形式）

参考例句：

• The hungry man greedily shoveled the food into his mouth. 那个饥饿的人贪婪地、大口大口地吃。 来自《现代英汉综合大词典》
• They shoveled a path through the snow. 他们在雪中铲出一条小路。 来自《现代汉英综合大词典》