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The seven-year-old girl tweeting from Aleppo has gone silent

'We are sure the army is capturing us now. We will see eachother another day dear world,' says the last tweet from her account

Matt Payton
Monday 05 December 2016 10:50 EST
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Seven-year-old girl tweeting from Aleppo siege pleads for help

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A seven-year-old girl living in Aleppo who has been tweeting from the besieged Syrian city has disappeared from Twitter.

Bana Alamed, with the help of her mother a teacher, gained a wide following including by tweeting in English about life in the war-torn city.

The last tweet from the @alemedbana account written by Bana's mother Fatema said: "We are sure the army is capturing us now. We will see each other another day dear world."

Aleppo, the largest city in Syria before the civil war, is now split in two with the Rebel-held east and the government-held West.

According to the UN, at least 250,000 civilians are trapped in the years-long siege. An estimated 400,000 civilians have been killed during the civil war.

Speaking to the BBC, Fatemah said her daughter wanted "the word to hear our voice".

In a tweet from November, Nada said: "Tonight we have no house, it's bombed and I got in rubble. I saw deaths and I almost died."

On discovering Nada's tweets, JK Rowling sent her eBook copies of the complete Harry Potter series after the little girl said she liked to read to "forget the war".

Ms Rowling has retweeted some of Nada's tweets after the account was deleted calling for information on the family's whereabouts.

The conditions for civilians in rebel-held areas of the city are becoming increasingly desperate with many reduced to scavenging.

Rebel shelling on the government-held part of the contested city has intensified in recent weeks as Syrian government and allied troops push their way into parts of Aleppo controlled by the opposition.

In an offensive that began last week, Syrian government forces seized large areas of Aleppo.

Rebel fighters fired mortars and shells into the government-controlled part of Aleppo to the west.

Syrian State TV said four civilians were killed in three different neighbourhoods in western Aleppo.

The opposition-run Thiqa News agency and the Syrian Civil Defence in Aleppo city said four civilians were killed in rebel-held Zabadiyeh district when barrel bombs were dropped.

In the nearby rebel-controlled Idlib province, Syrian opposition activists said Russian and Syrian aircraft stepped up assaults, a day after air raids killed more than 60 people.

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