Significado de "beleaguered"

Pessoal,

Estava lendo um texto e deparei com algumas palavras que não entendi .Seguem em negrito:

Last month the beleaguered mobile telecoms industry could allow itself a momentary celebration.
In Europe the market may have stagnated but across the world the mobile, in the early 1990's little more than a footnote in debates on the wired world, has leapt from obscurity towards ubiquity.
Unprecendent numbers of people are now on the move, whether as commuters, nomadic workers, backpackers or migrants.


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