The city is being further reduced to rubble by barrel bombs dropped by the regime's forces

The last seven Syrian Christians in rebel-held Aleppo await the end of their lives in a pensioners’ hostel serenaded by barrel bombs, rockets and gunfire, so isolated from the reach of their church that they bury their dead in the garden.

Yet they do not want to leave.

“I want to stay here until God finishes my life,” said Maggie Anstas, 85, one of five elderly residents and two caretakers who remain in the Syrian Catholic Mar Elias hostel in Aleppo’s old city.

“I have no relatives since my husband died and I came to live here 20 years ago. Where else would I go? This is my home.”

The deep roar of three barrel bombs dropped by a helicopter rumbled across the city as