Syria's rebels lost all of the northern neighborhoods of their stronghold in east Aleppo on Monday, as the army made significant advances in its offensive to recapture the entire city.
The regime gains have prompted an exodus of thousands of desperate civilians, some fleeing to districts held by the government or Kurdish forces, others heading south into areas still under opposition control.
Figures published on Sunday indicated that nearly 10,000 civilians had fled eastern as the Syrian army advanced.
"The situation is disastrous," Ibrahim Abu Al-Leith, a spokesman for the White Helmets rescue group in the Ansari neighborhood, said on Monday.
"There is mass displacement and morale is in the gutter," he added.
"People are sleeping in the streets. They don't have anything to eat or drink, but neither do we," he told AFP.
The loss of eastern Aleppo would be a potentially devastating blow to Syria's rebels, who seized the area in 2012.
The opposition has steadily lost territory since Russia intervened to bolster President Bashar Al-Assad in September 2015. READ MORE
