美国有线新闻 CNN 叙利亚猛轰东古塔致数百人死亡
时间：2018-12-20 作者：英语课 分类：CNN美国有线新闻2018年4月
First report takes us to the Middle East, where the fight is getting more intense in one of the last parts of Syria that's controlled by rebels who are fighting the government. Eastern Ghouta is a suburb of Damascus, the Syrian capital, almost 400,000 people live there, and eastern Ghouta has been completely surrounded by Syrian government forces for more than four years. It's supposed to be what's called a de-escalation zone, meaning an area where civilians 1 can live without being targeted by anyone fighting in Syria's civil war.
But observes in the region say that shelling and a series of airstrikes by the Syrian government have killed at least 250 civilians in the past 48 hours and turn parts of eastern Ghouta to rubble 2. A hospital director there says the airstrikes are nothing new, that they have been going on for years, but that residents have not seen anything like the violence of recent days. So, why was eastern Ghouta targeted?
The Syrian government says rockets and mortars 3 were launched from there on Tuesday and that they killed five civilians and injured 20 others.
Government media say the Syrian army responded with, quote, precise strikes that targeted rocket launchers and defensive 4 positions of the armed rebels there.
The ISIS terrorist group has also played a part in Syria's civil war but it's lost a lot of ground in the country over the past year and Syrian government forces supported by Russia are making a major effort to take over the remaining areas that are held by rebels.
The civilians who live in eastern Ghouta say they expect the government will launch an offensive on the ground in the days ahead.
The conflict in Syria has been going on since 2011. The United Nations estimates that 400,000 people have been killed and millions have had to leave their homes or get out of the country altogether.
- 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。
- 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。