Charities warn that doctors and nurses who stayed in opposition-held areas could be treated as rebel supporters by regime forces

Doctors and nurses who chose to stay on in rebel-held Aleppo, working in hospitals regularly hit by bombing raids, now fear being jailed, tortured or killed for their commitment to saving lives.

As a ceasefire came into effect late on Tuesday to allow the evacuation of the final opposition-held areas, medical charities warned that medics who had stayed in east Aleppo could be treated by Syrian government forces as rebel supporters.

Until now the only way out of the besieged areas was into government controlled parts of the city. For doctors and nurses that has been a particularly high risk, because they have been heavily targeted for their work and as symbols of the opposition since the early days of the uprising against Assad.

“Doctors have been targeted since the beginning of the crisis for doing their medical duty. Those who chose to stay in Aleppo, the heart of the opposition, are at severe risk in government areas,” said Dr Zaher Sahloul, a Syrian-American doctor who has worked in Aleppo and is the former president of the Syrian American Medical Society.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syrian pro-government forces in Aleppo after they captured an area in the eastern part of the city. Photograph: George Ourfalian/AFP/Getty Images

Some medical staff seem to have disappeared in the turmoil of Aleppo’s fall, but Sahloul said he hoped plans to evacuate civilians to remaining rebel-held areas could save the lives of men and women who had selflessly risked their own for so long.

“Many of the doctors refused to leave when they could, because they said, ‘Who will take care of the civilians if we leave’,” he said. “Now we have tried to work with the Russian, US and Turkish governments to see if they can be evacuated with the injured to other rebel-held areas, where they will feel safe.”

Non-medic civilians living in the final rebel-held districts are equally terrified of reprisals from a government known for its ruthless treatment of anyone it considers an opposition supporter.

“All we got from our friends in Aleppo this morning are their wills because they are waiting to be killed or arrested by Assad forces. How to forgive?” wrote journalist and activist Zaina Erhaim on Tuesday.

Zaina Erhaim (@ZainaErhaim) No 1 knows where anyone z n #Aleppo, they r scattered & lost com. Desperate calls frm outside 2 know whether their loved 1s r killed yet!

The civilians are right to be concerned, said Neil Sammonds, Amnesty International researcher on Syria, citing the fate of people who lived in other rebel-held cities that have been retaken by pro-regime forces.

“Simply having lived in opposition areas is enough, in the eyes of many of the government forces, to justify being disappeared or killed,” he said, citing disappearances and extrajudicial killings in the Damascus suburbs of Yarmouk and Darayya and the old city of Homs after they fell to Assad.

“It’s often unclear who may have been extrajudicially killed on the spot and who may have been taken away to torture and quite possible death in government detention, as the documentation of Amnesty International and others clearly attests.”

Fight for Aleppo is almost over – but a new chapter of misery begins Read more

All civilians with a high profile are frightened, including the family of seven-year-old Bana, whose Twitter account has offered a window into the terrifying life of a child living under siege.

“The army is so near now. I don’t know what to do. The only way to flee is to the regime side, which I fear because they will kill me,” her mother, Fatemah, said after rapid government advances forced them to move again inside the shrinking opposition-held enclave.

Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) Final message - people are dying since last night. I am very surprised I am tweeting right now & still alive. - Fatemah #Aleppo

Bombing raids on makeshift clinics and underground hospitals caused international outrage recently, as Aleppo’s medical facilities were picked brutally apart. But doctors had been targeted for treating people injured at protests, long before any Syrians even took up arms.

“Before the rebellion became militarised, many doctors who provided medical care to demonstrators were taken from hospitals, detained, tortured and some killed,” Sahloul said.

Four years ago the government went a step further, making it a crime for medical staff to treat anyone connected with the opposition.

“The regime passed a law in 2012, that anyone who helps someone in the opposition, including doctors and nurses, will be considered terrorist. So they can be targeted under law,” he said.