"SaveAleppo," the hashtag reads, but with every anguished tweet today its message seems more futile.

The tweets come from civilians in the last rebel-held neighborhoods of Syria's besieged city of Aleppo, and from those hoping in vain to help them from afar as government forces advance closer. The United Nations estimates that 82 people were killed yesterday, and Syrian president Bashar al-Assad's army seems hours away from capturing the eastern side of the city that had eluded conquest for the past four-and-a-half years. In photos and videos geotagged Aleppo, bodies are strewn in the street and women beg for help. The White Helmets, a volunteer group that has for years worked to protect Aleppo's civilians and clear the dead after attacks, has abandoned hope.

Since 2011, Syrians have taken to Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to beseech the West for support—both humanitarian aid and political pressure to end the civil war. But the US has refused to get heavily involved in the fighting between anti-government rebels and Russian-backed Syrian government forces. Support the Obama administration has offered to rebel factions has led some in the international community to worry that Syria's civil war would become a proxy war between Russia and the US. The incoming Trump administration is far more open to the Russian position on Syria, and since August, Assad and the Russian forces supporting him have made considerable military gains. In the past 48 hours, they have pushed further into the rebel-held areas of Aleppo.

Now, in what will likely be the final hours of the fight, they tweet not because it might help, but because they can do little else. Reduced to two square kilometers in the city, the rebel area of Aleppo lacks any route of escape except into the hands of the Assad regime. Some women reportedly chose suicide yesterday rather than face capture by the government. Others, crouched in bombed-out hallways amid the rubble of their former city, turn to the tiny devices in their hands to share with the world their horror, fear, anguish, rage.

Journalist Bilal Kareem spoke in a video Monday night as blasts rang all around him. "We may not be able to send any more messages as regime forces push closer and closer," he said.

Seven-year-old Bana Alabed and her mother Fatemah, who in the past few months captured the attention of Western media with their frank and chilling descriptions of life in eastern Aleppo, tweeted on Monday night that they were surprised to still be alive.

By Tuesday morning, Bana was bracing for death.

The * New York Times* today reported that civilians trying to flee were being shot. There is no way out of eastern Aleppo. There is no water. No food. But there is cellular service even as the bombs fall. Even as the children are blown to bits. And that's because very close by, just across the city, life continues as normal. In the government-controlled western part of Aleppo 1.4 million people drive to work and school every day. The cellular towers broadcast connection across the front lines, ignorant of the boundaries of man and war, reaching across to those who now wish only to be heard.

"To everyone who can hear me, we are here exposed to a genocide in the besieged city of Aleppo," activist Lina Shamy said in a video Monday night. "This might be my last video. More than 50,000 people who rebelled against the dictator Bashar al-Assad are threatened with field executions or dying under bombings."

Still others refuse to give up hope. On Tuesday morning, Kareem said, "The good news is that it's raining, and that means the planes can't fly the way they want to and be able to see and then bomb us." Around 12:30 ET on Tuesday, Agence France Press reported that Turkey was spearheading negotiations with the Russian and Assad forces in Aleppo to arrange for the remaining civilians to get safe passage out of the city.

The UN Security Council convened an emergency meeting. In Istanbul, thousands protested outside the Russian embassy hoping for an end to the siege. The rest of the world could do little more than read Twitter. And weep. And apologize.

https://twitter.com/salma03/status/808718889798483968