Bana hides as bombs fall around her in Aleppo. (Twitter) 
 
 Aleppo governor Hussein Diab has promised to evacuate Bana Alabed, who has become renowned for tweeting her experience in the Syrian civil war. 
 
 Bana Alabed, 7, and her mother tweeted messages of despair on Tuesday as bombings intensified amid her family’s fears that the government will target them for fleeing. 
 
 “I am afraid to lose one of my kids if I flee with all the people because they think I work against the regime," Bana's mother Fatemah said in an interview with CNN. 
 
 Fatemah took to her daughter's Twitter account to express their fear their deaths are imminent and dismay no one will help them in tweets they have described as “final messages”. 
 
 However, the CEO of Al-Masdar News, Leith Avdou Fadel said on social media in the last few hours that the governor of Aleppo, Hussein Diab, had made a statement promising to evacuate Bana and her family. 
 
 The report came as Bana said her father was injured. “I am crying,” she said. 
 
 Bana has been tweeting her experience of the Syrian conflict nearly every day. Followers have learned she has lost some of her closest friends, her house and subsequent shelters. 
 
 Last week she was feared dead when her Twitter account was deleted. 
 
 Seven-year-old Aleppo Twitter girl goes silent as bombs fall Little girl who captured hearts and clouded minds has gone silent on Twitter. 
 
 Other people in Aleppo have also been using their Twitter accounts to post “final messages”. 
 
 Journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem tweeted a video, saying: “Perhaps my final message from E. Aleppo. Regime forces are closing in and bunker busters are raining down.” ||||| Image copyright AFP Image caption A stream of people try to flee the fighting 
 
 Syrian pro-government forces in eastern Aleppo have been killing people, including women and children, on the spot in their homes and on the street, the United Nations says. 
 
 The UN's human rights office said streets were full of bodies. 
 
 Meanwhile, the UN children's agency cited a doctor as saying a building housing as many as 100 unaccompanied children was under heavy attack. 
 
 Rebels, who have held east Aleppo for four years, are on the brink of defeat. 
 
 Thousands of people are reportedly trapped in the last remaining neighbourhoods still in rebel hands, facing intense bombardment as pro-government troops advance. 
 
 The Syrian government's ally Russia, which has rejected calls for a humanitarian truce, earlier said any atrocities were "actually being committed by terrorist groups", meaning rebel forces. 
 
 Rebel officials said on Tuesday that an agreement had been reached to evacuate civilians and fighters from besieged areas but there has been no confirmation from the Syrian government or Russia. 
 
 The UN Security Council will discuss the situation in Aleppo later on Tuesday. 
 
 What's happening in rebel areas? 
 
 "We're filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner" of eastern Aleppo, UN human rights office spokesman Rupert Colville told a news conference. 
 
 He said that 82 civilians had reportedly been killed by pro-government forces, of whom 11 were women and 13 children, adding that the death toll could be much higher. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Syrians in western Aleppo celebrated at the prospect of an imminent victory in the east 
 
 "Yesterday evening, we received further deeply disturbing reports that numerous bodies were lying on the streets," Mr Colville added, while admitting it was hard to verify the reports. 
 
 "The residents were unable to retrieve them due to the intense bombardment and their fear of being shot on sight." 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Jan Egeland: Militiamen and their backers should be investigated 
 
 Meanwhile, Unicef quoted a doctor in the city as saying: "Many children, possibly more than 100, unaccompanied or separated from their families, are trapped in a building, under heavy attack in east Aleppo". 
 
 Ibrahim abu-Laith, a spokesman for the White Helmets volunteer rescue group, said 90% of their equipment was out of operation and only one medical point was still working in the besieged areas. There was no first aid equipment left, he added. 
 
 He said volunteers were using their hands to pull people out of rubble, but some 70 people were stuck and could not be extracted. 
 
 It is hard to know exactly how many people are in the besieged areas, although one US official with knowledge of efforts to secure safe passage for people in the city told the BBC that there were around 50,000 people. 
 
 Other local sources say there could be as many as 100,000, with people arriving from areas recently taken by the government. 
 
 Eastern Aleppo evacuees - in pictures 
 
 Former Chancellor Osborne: UK 'shares failings' over Syria 
 
 Last messages from Aleppo 
 
 Activist Lina Shamy: "Humans all over the world, don't sleep! You can do something, protest now! Stop the genocide". 
 
 Bana Alabed, aged 7: "I am talking to the world now live from East #Aleppo. This is my last moment to either live or die." 
 
 White Helmets tweet: "All streets & destroyed buildings are full with dead bodies. It's hell." 
 
 Abdul Kafi Alhamado, teacher: "Some people are under the rubble, no-one can help them. They just leave them under the rubble until they die - these houses as their graves." 
 
 The 'final goodbyes' from Aleppo 
 
 How close are rebel-held areas to falling? 
 
 Russia's military says 98% of the city is now back in government hands. 
 
 According to the AFP news agency, the rebels have control of just a handful of neighbourhoods, including Sukkari and Mashhad. 
 
 The Syrian army's Lt Gen Zaid al-Saleh said on Monday that the battle "should end quickly", telling the rebels they "either have to surrender or die". 
 
 The UK-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), has also said the battle for Aleppo had reached its end, with "just a matter of a small period of time" before "a total collapse". 
 
 What is the world saying about it? 
 
 UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he was alarmed by the reports of atrocities and had instructed his special envoy to Syria to "follow up urgently with the parties concerned". 
 
 France and the UK requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council for Tuesday to discuss "the worst humanitarian tragedy of the 21st Century unfolding before our eyes," AFP quoted ambassador Francois Delattre as saying. The meeting will be held at 17:00 GMT. 
 
 The UN's humanitarian adviser on Syria, Jan Egeland, earlier spoke of "massacres of unarmed civilians, of young men, of women, children, health workers". 
 
 He named a pro-government Iraqi Shia militia as being responsible for the killings, but placed overall blame for any atrocities in the hands of the Syrian and Russian governments. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Drone footage reveals the extent of the devastation in eastern Aleppo 
 
 "Those who let them loose in this area are also accountable," he said. 
 
 In response, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Mr Egeland was not in full possession of the facts on the ground. "If he did, he would be paying attention to the atrocities that are actually being committed by terrorist groups," he said. 
 
 For much of the past four years, Aleppo has been divided roughly in two, with the government controlling the western half and rebels the east. 
 
 Syrian troops finally broke the deadlock with the help of Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes, reinstating a siege on the east in early September and launching an all-out assault weeks later. ||||| Image copyright Reuters Image caption There are very few medical facilities for people in the rebel-held area 
 
 The UN and Red Cross have appealed for civilians to be protected, as fighting in Syria's Aleppo nears its end. 
 
 The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said people had "literally nowhere safe to run". 
 
 UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon voiced alarm "over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians". 
 
 Thousands of people are trapped in just a handful of rebel-held districts, which are facing intense bombardment as government troops advance. 
 
 What is the situation in rebel areas? 
 
 It is hard to know exactly how many people are trapped in the besieged areas, although one US official with knowledge of efforts to secure safe passage for people in the city told the BBC that there were around 50,000 people. 
 
 Some residents have sent out messages saying they are crowded into abandoned apartments and rainy streets, unable to take shelter from the bombing, the New York Times reports. 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Abdul Kafi Alhamado, an English teacher, says it is "Doomsday" in rebel-held Aleppo 
 
 Teacher Abdul Kafi Alhamado described on Monday how his district was densely packed with people who had arrived from other areas, and "bombs are like rain", so there are "huge numbers of casualties". 
 
 "People are running, they don't know where, just running. People are injured in the streets, no-one can go to help them. Some other people are under the rubble, no-one can help them," he told the BBC. 
 
 Many are said to be fearful about what will happen to them after the city falls, particularly after allegations by opposition activists that Syrian government forces have been carrying summary killings of rebels in neighbourhoods that were captured on Monday. 
 
 These claims appear to be backed up by the UN's humanitarian adviser on Syria, Jan Egeland, who said they had received "detailed reports of massacres of unarmed civilians, of young men, of women, children, health workers". 
 
 In western Aleppo, which is under government control, Syrian state TV showed footage of people celebrating at the prospect of an imminent victory. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption There were scenes of celebration in western Aleppo 
 
 How much of Aleppo remains in rebel hands? 
 
 Again, it is not entirely clear. Russia's military, allied to the Syrian government forces, says 98% of the city is now back in government hands. 
 
 According to the AFP news agency, the rebels have control of just a handful of neighbourhoods, including Sukkari and Mashhad. 
 
 The Syrian army's Lt Gen Zaid al-Saleh said on Monday that the battle "should end quickly", telling the rebels they "either have to surrender or die". 
 
 The British-based monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), has also said the battle for Aleppo "had reached its end", with "just a matter of a small period of time" before "it's a total collapse". 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Drone footage reveals the extent of the devastation in eastern Aleppo 
 
 What has been the reaction? 
 
 Ban Ki-moon's spokesman, Stephane Dujarric, said "the secretary-general is alarmed over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians, including women and children, in recent hours in Aleppo". 
 
 "While stressing that the United Nations is not able to independently verify these reports," he said, the secretary-general had "instructed his special envoy for Syria to follow up urgently with the parties concerned". 
 
 Meanwhile, the ICRC said a deepening humanitarian crisis could only be averted if basic rules of war and humanity were respected, warning "this may be the last chance to save lives". 
 
 Homage to Aleppo 
 
 Assad's fragmenting military 
 
 Mr Egeland tweeted that the governments of Syria and Russia were "accountable for any and all atrocities that the victorious militias in Aleppo are now committing". 
 
 What do Syria and Russia say? 
 
 The Kremlin has hit back at Mr Egeland's allegations, saying the atrocities "are actually being committed by terrorist groups", by which it means the rebels. 
 
 "The fact here is he doesn't talk about these atrocities, which shows that unfortunately he doesn't have any information about the reality of the situation in Syria and Aleppo," said President Vladimir Putin's spokesman, Dmitry Peskov. 
 
 The US said on Monday that Russia had rejected the idea of a pause in the bombing to allow people to leave. 
 
 The Russian Centre for Reconciliation of the Opposing Sides says it has helped 7,796 civilians leave rebel-held areas in the past 24 hours. 
 
 For much of the past four years, the city has been divided roughly in two, with the government controlling the western half and rebels the east. 
 
 Syrian troops finally broke the deadlock with the help of Iranian-backed militias and Russian air strikes, reinstating a siege on the east in early September and launching an all-out assault weeks later. 
 
 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says that at least 415 civilians and 364 rebel fighters have been killed in rebel-held areas since 15 November and another 130 civilians have died in rebel rocket and mortar attacks on the government-controlled west. 
 
 Analysts say the fall of Aleppo would be a big blow to the opposition, as it would leave the government in control of Syria's four largest cities. ||||| The Syrian armed forces are close to capturing the remaining rebel-held districts in the enclave of east Aleppo, bringing them their biggest victory in five years of war. The insurgent armed forces, that were originally estimated to number between 8,000 and 10,000 fighters, have been retreating or giving up more readily than had been expected. It is still possible that a hard core will hold out in the ruins, but President Bashar al-Assad will be eager to crush any remaining resistance so he can present the fall of east Aleppo as a decisive turning point in the conflict. 
 
 Will this be true? There are so many players with such diverse agendas in the Syrian civil war that past “turning points” have turned out to be no such thing. But what is truly important about what we have just seen in Aleppo is that the outside allies of the armed opposition to Assad – Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and, in a somewhat different category, the US - have not come to the rescue of the rebels whom they have previously supported. 
 
 Over the last five years it has been foreign powers and not domestic parties in Syria who have dictated who is winning or losing at any particular moment. When Assad was losing he went to the Russians, Iranians, Iraqis and Hezbollah and asked for more support. Likewise, the insurgents looked to their external allies when they were on the retreat. This time round this has not happened. The Russian military intervention in September 2015 finally and permanently tipped the balance of power Assad’s favour. 
 
 Video shows Syrian Army taking Aleppo 
 
 Turkey, unsupported by any foreign power and enmeshed in its struggle with the Kurds and Islamic State, has been largely mute about the fate of east Aleppo. Its main concern is the de facto Syrian Kurdish state that stretches across northern Syria just south of its frontier. The failed military coup of 15 July and the consequent purge makes it dubious how far President Recep Tayyip Erdogan can effectively intervene at this stage in the war. 
 
 Saudi Arabia took over in 2013 from Qatar as the biggest Arab ally of the insurgency. Until quite late in the day, the Saudis and the Arab Gulf states remained convinced that Assad would be defeated and overthrown like Muammar Gaddafi in Libya in 2011. They exaggerated the likelihood of US military intervention against Assad though President Obama had made clear his wish not to be sucked into another quagmire in the Middle East after the US experience in Iraq and Afghanistan. 
 
 In Pictures: The crisis unfolding in Syria 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 30 show all In Pictures: The crisis unfolding in Syria 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 1/30 A Syrian family arrives at a checkpoint, manned by pro-government forces, at the al-Hawoz street roundabout, after leaving Aleppo's eastern neighbourhoods Getty 
 
 2/30 A Syrian woman, fleeing violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, reacts as she stands with her children in Aleppo's Fardos neighbourhood, after regime troops retook the area from rebel fighters Getty 
 
 3/30 Syrian pro-regime fighters, gesture as they drive past resident fleeing violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, in Aleppo's Fardos neighbourhood Getty 
 
 4/30 Syrian rebels withdrew from six more neighbourhoods in their one-time bastion of east Aleppo in the face of advancing government troops, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Getty 
 
 5/30 Syrian rebels withdrew from six more neighbourhoods in their one-time bastion of east Aleppo in the face of advancing government troops, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Getty 
 
 6/30 Syrian residents, fleeing violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, arrive in Aleppo's Fardos neighbourhood , after regime troops retook the area from rebel fighters Getty 
 
 7/30 Syrian pro-regime fighters, gesture as they drive past residents fleeing violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, in Aleppo's Fardos neighbourhood Getty 
 
 8/30 Syrian residents, fleeing violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, arrive in Aleppo's Fardos neighbourhood, after regime troops retook the area from rebel fighters Getty 
 
 9/30 Syrian residents, fleeing violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood, arrive in Aleppo's Fardos neighbourhood Getty 
 
 10/30 A Syrian pro-regime fighter speaks with a child, as residents flee violence in the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood. Syrian rebels withdrew from six more neighbourhoods in their one-time bastion of east Aleppo in the face of advancing government troops AFP/Getty Images 
 
 11/30 Smoke rises as seen from a governement-held area of Aleppo, Syria Reuters 
 
 12/30 Syrian soldiers targeting rebels-held areas in the eastern neighborhoods in Aleppo, Syria. According to media reports, the army is now holding on 99 percent of Aleppoís eastern neighborhoods EPA 
 
 13/30 Syrian pro-government forces patrol Aleppo's eastern al-Salihin neighbourhood after troops retook the area from rebel fighters Getty 
 
 14/30 Syrian soldiers rest following the battle at al-Sheik Saeed neighborhood in Aleppo, Syria EPA 
 
 15/30 A Syrian pro-government fighter walking past closed shops in the Bab al-Nasr district of Aleppo's Old City. Once renowned for its bustling souks, grand citadel and historic gates, Aleppo's Old City has been rendered virtually unrecognisable by some of the worst violence of Syria's war Getty 
 
 16/30 The crucial battle for Aleppo entered its 'final phase' after Syrian rebels retreated into a small pocket of their former bastion in the face of new army advances. The retreat leaves opposition fighters confined to just a handful of neighbourhoods in southeast Aleppo, the largest of them Sukkari and Mashhad Getty 
 
 17/30 Syrian civilans arrive at a checkpoint, manned by pro-government forces, at the al-Hawoz street roundabout, after leaving Aleppo's eastern neighbourhoods. Syria's government has retaken at least 85 percent of east Aleppo, which fell to rebels in 2012, since beginning its operation Getty 
 
 18/30 Syrian civilians flee the Sukkari neighbourhood towards safer rebel-held areas in southeastern Aleppo Getty 
 
 19/30 Syrians celebrate in the government-held Mogambo neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, after rebel fighters retreated into a small pocket of their former bastion in the face of new army advances Getty 
 
 20/30 Syrians celebrate in the government-held Mogambo neighbourhood of the northern Syrian city of Aleppo, after rebel fighters retreated into a small pocket of their former bastion in the face of new army advances. The fall of Aleppo would be the worst rebel defeat since Syria's conflict began in 2011, and leave the government in control of the country's five major cities Getty 
 
 21/30 A Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, close to the Syrian border PA wire 
 
 22/30 Syrian refugee Aliya inside the tent where she lives with her husband and ten children in a camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, close to the Syrian border PA wire 
 
 23/30 Syrian refugee women and children outside the entrance to their tents in the refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, close to the Syrian border PA Wire 
 
 24/30 A Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, close to the Syrian border PA wire 
 
 25/30 A Syrian refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, close to the Syrian border PA Wire 
 
 26/30 A Syrian refugee woman outside the entrance to the tent where her family live, in the refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley, Lebanon, close to the Syrian border PA wire 
 
 27/30 A vehicle drives past a mosque at night in Idlib, Syria. Picture taken with a long exposure Reuters 
 
 28/30 Damaged buildings stand in the rebel-controlled town of Binnish in Idlib province, Syria Reuters 
 
 29/30 The night sky is seen through damaged windows in the rebel-controlled town of Binnish in Idlib province, Syria Reuters 
 
 30/30 Damaged buildings stand in the rebel-controlled area of Maaret al-Numan in Idlib province, Syria Reuters 
 
 In reality, Assad was always likely to stay in power because the upper ranks of his regime were united, he had a powerful army but, above all, because Russia and Iran were always more committed to his survival than Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the US were to regime change. 
 
 But there are limits to Assad’s military success. This has been underlined by the recapture of the ancient city of Palmyra by Isis fighters who are once again executing captured Syrian soldiers in the streets of the modern city. The Syrian army, like all other combatants in the Iraq-Syrian civil war, is short of troops to replace casualties. This is one reason why men of military age leaving east Aleppo are being conscripted straight into the army. 
 
 The conflict was and remains a civil war, primarily sectarian between Sunni and the rest but with ethnic and social aspects. The Syrian security forces may have taken the poorest and most religious part of Aleppo, but the countryside around Aleppo is largely Sunni. Better off urban areas tended to support the government, while the rural Sunni districts are the bed rock of the revolution. 
 
 Seven-year-old girl tweeting from Aleppo siege pleads for help 
 
 These districts are likely to fight on, particularly when government forces move against Idlib province to the west of Aleppo city. These are heavily populated Sunni areas close to the Turkish border and will probably still be able to get supplies from Turkey. The more territory the Syrian army takes, the more it will have to hold and defend. Its enemies hope it will be vulnerable to guerrilla war and will never be able to reassert its hold over all of Syria. They may be right – much depends on the attitude of foreign powers – but many Syrians have always said that the struggle for Aleppo would decide the war. They may well be right. ||||| Mr. Assad’s recent military successes have depended heavily on help from Russia, Iran and the Iranian-backed Lebanese Shiite militant group Hezbollah, which are reviled by many of Mr. Assad’s Sunni opponents, and viewed with unease even by some of his supporters because of their growing power in the country. Large areas of Aleppo and other cities and towns have been reduced to rubble by the fighting. And rebel forces, Kurdish militias and Islamic State fighters are still operating in large areas of northern and eastern Syria. 
 
 That has been vividly clear in recent days, with Islamic State fighters advancing in the desert city of Palmyra, amid its ancient ruins, as the government focused on Aleppo. 
 
 For civilians trapped behind the battle lines in Aleppo, though, more urgent questions loomed. Time appeared to be running out to strike a deal to allow them to evacuate. 
 
 Rebel and opposition leaders want evacuees to be given an option to go to territory they control. Many of the remaining civilians refuse to go to government-held territory because they are afraid they would be jailed and tortured there. Others say the bombardment in their districts is too intense to allow any escape. There were also reports in state news media of rebel shelling of government-held areas. 
 
 Photo 
 
 According to the Russian government, Mr. Assad’s main foreign backer, more than 100,000 people have fled from the rebel enclave to government-held areas, and 2,200 rebel fighters have surrendered. At least 13,000 people have fled in the past 24 hours, it said. 
 
 But there are still believed to be thousands of civilians trapped in districts that have been bombarded for more than 24 hours, while the army and its militia allies seized most of the southern part of the city. 
 
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 “An important call in the name of civilians to help them,” Abdelkafi al-Hamdo, a teacher and antigovernment activist, said in a text message to a group of journalists. “Stop bombing. Take them out.” 
 
 The situation was so desperate, residents said, that it was unclear whether rebels and civilians there could even hold a meeting to decide whether to surrender and evacuate. 
 
 “Believe me, no one rejects the safety evacuation,” one resident, Yasser Abu al-Joud, said in a text message to the journalists’ group. “All of us are waiting, dying now in the last neighborhoods.” 
 
 Hisham al-Skeif is a civilian member of the local council that had tried to govern the rebel-held areas of Aleppo, which once included half the city. Mr. Skeif expressed frustration that while international officials were in contact with rebel leaders, no one appeared to be talking directly to the trapped civilians. 
 
 “All the political activists and the media, the relief workers, the unarmed, we are about 1,000, including our families,” he said. Though the government has said it would offer amnesty to anyone who surrenders, “if the regime entered, we will be slaughtered,” he said. “Of course everybody is negotiating with those who are armed, but we are not armed.” 
 
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 “The armed can defend themselves, but we can’t,” he added. 
 
 Mr. Hamdo said in a series of text messages that families in Aleppo were “waiting death together.” 
 
 “People are running, don’t know where,” he wrote. “People are under the rubble alive, and no one can save them. Some people are injured in the streets, and no one can go to help them cuz the bombs are always on the same place.” 
 
 Some rebel leaders have said that the United States, which backs some rebel groups, sent them a proposal that would allow evacuees their choice of destination, under security guarantees from Russia. But trust has eroded, and no agreement had emerged by Monday night. 
 
 Syrian and Russian officials say the offensive in Aleppo will continue until rebels surrender or die. 
 
 Photo 
 
 “The issue of withdrawing militants is the subject of separate agreements,” Sergei Ryabkov, the Russian deputy foreign minister, told the Ria news agency on Monday. “This agreement has not yet been reached, largely because the United States insists on unacceptable terms.” 
 
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 The sticking point for months has been a dispute between Russia and the United States over what to do about fighters linked with Al Qaeda who are among the rebel groups in eastern Aleppo. The United Nations estimates that about 10 percent of the 8,000 rebel fighters in the city belong to a Qaeda-linked group, the Levant Conquest Front. The rebels and their international backers say the figure is much lower; the government says it is much higher. 
 
 Before the government broke through the rebel defenses, the United Nations was proposing that the Levant Conquest Front leave Aleppo in exchange for three main broad concessions from the government side: an end to bombardment; protection and aid for remaining civilians; and some form of local administration for rebel areas. 
 
 But the government rejected any form of self-government, saying that it would “reward terrorists,” while the rebels rejected versions of the deal that did not include it. Now, there is no meaningful rebel territory left for the local opposition council to govern. 
 
 “We are hearing terrifying S O S calls from the civilians, but we can’t do anything,” said Bassem al-Hajj, a spokesman for Nour al-Din al-Zenki, one of the main rebel groups in Aleppo. “The fighters are defending, but they are retreating under pressure. Unfortunately, the situation is very bad.” 
 
 The focus has now shifted to ending the bombardment and protecting the remaining civilians from reprisals, a reasonable fear in a country where, throughout the six-year conflict, people have been tortured and killed in prison for opposing the government. 
 
 “Understand this,” Mr. Hamdo, who said his wife and small daughter were cowering in their apartment with him, wrote on Twitter. “I can’t simply surrender and being captive. I am speaking out, and this is a crime. I might then ask death, and not got it.” 
 
 Malek, an activist who asked to be identified only by his first name for fear that he would soon find himself in government territory, said he had moved on Monday to a safer place for the 10th time since the offensive began, along with his cats, Rocky and Loz, the Arabic word for almond. 
 
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 “Why should I lie? I’m not well,” he said in a series of voice messages. “We are people, are being deleted from the human map. We have two neighborhoods and one street, and the regime will keep bombing this small area.” 
 
 Bodies were stuck under the rubble, Malek said, and even members of the White Helmets civil defense group could not rescue anyone, because the group’s equipment had been destroyed and their members scattered by the shelling. 
 
 Still attempting to find humor, he said that his cat Rocky had lost “his fiancée” along the way. “Now he’s lonely,” Malek said. 
 
 Dr. Salem, a dentist who had kept his clinic open until last week, finally moved to one of the last rebel neighborhoods as his own was taken by government forces. He said he walked through streets shrouded in smoke, and littered with the dead and wounded, to a small area where thousands were crowded in a shrinking space. “There will be a massacre if one rocket falls here,” said Dr. Salem, using only his first name. ||||| As Syrian government forces encircled the last sliver of rebel-held territory in Aleppo on Monday, trapped residents braced for the worst. Some posted final messages online, saying their possible final farewells amid the rumble of intensifying airstrikes and war planes overhead — the sounds of the Bashar al-Assad regime closing in. 
 
 “I am waiting to die or be captured by the Assad regime…Pray for me and always remember us,” photographer Ameen al-Halabi wrote on Facebook. 
 
 American video journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem, one of few still getting reports out of eastern Aleppo, recorded a video message calling out Muslim countries who failed to help Aleppo, saying, “You blew it.” 
 
 “The battle in eastern Aleppo should end quickly. They (rebels) don’t have much time. They either have to surrender or die,” said Lieutenant General Zaid al-Saleh, head of the government’s Aleppo security committee, according to Reuters.
– If conditions could get incrementally worse than "barely survivable," they just did in Aleppo, Syria. The human rights arm of the United Nations says that forces supporting the Syrian regime have been entering homes in eastern Aleppo and murdering residents, with one report coming in that 82 civilians (11 said to be women, 13 children) have been shot in four separate areas of the city, per the BBC. "We're filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner," says a UN spokesman, who conceded that confirmation of the reports was impossible at the moment. Another humanitarian rep from the UN is calling it a "complete meltdown of humanity." From elsewhere on the internet: The New York Times reports rebels hold just a "sliver of territory," per reps for the Syrian government and opposition forces. The paper notes it's "increasingly likely" that Assad's regime could regain control of the city "within days, if not hours." The UN and the Red Cross are making desperate pleas to spare the people of Aleppo, the BBC reports, with the International Committee of the Red Cross noting residents have "literally nowhere safe to run." UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon is said to be "alarmed over reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians," and the ICRC said further tragedy could only be avoided if the basic rules of war were adhered to. An opinion piece in the Independent examines why the rebels are losing (they can partly blame Turkey, Qatar, and Saudi Arabia) and whether Assad will have truly won the war if he gets eastern Aleppo back under his command. Vice News has compiled social media postings from people trapped in Aleppo now saying their final goodbyes to the world. One photographer there wrote, "I am waiting to die or be captured by the Assad regime … Pray for me and always remember us," while the mom of Bana Alabed, the 7-year-old girl who's been made famous by her tweets out of the war-torn city, posted on her daughter's Twitter account, "Final message—I am very sad no one is helping us in this world, no one is evacuating me & my daughter. Goodbye." SBS.com notes that Aleppo's governor has pledged to evacuate Bana and her family.