cross-fire
まだ１２歳の少年が、紛争地で命を落としました。
Handed a snack, and then executed: the last hours of the 12-year-old son of a Tamil Tiger
Photographs show boy was held before he was killed at close range.
The images were taken in May 2009 at the very end of the Sri Lankan government’s operation to crush the LTTE, which had launched a bloody, decades-long insurgency against the state that led to the deaths of perhaps 70,000 people. The authorities always said Prabhakaran’s son was killed in cross-fire, as troops moved in to take the LTTE’s last stronghold, located on a scrap of coastline near Mullaitivu in the north-east of the country.
cross-fireを取り上げます。早速辞書を引いてみると、文中では、軍事用語で「交差射撃、十字（砲）火」（『リーダーズ英和 第２版』研究社）という意味で使用されています。その他にも、「（質問の）一斉攻撃、（ことばの）激しいやりとり」(ibid)という意味も持ち合わせているので、これも併せて覚えておこうと思います。
お菓子で子供を誘惑した後、殺害するという残酷極まりない手口に驚きました。(Shou-VR*)
