JK Rowling Fan in Aleppo Is Now Homeless

'In between death and life now, please keep praying for us'
By Arden Dier,  Newser Staff
Posted Nov 28, 2016 7:13 AM CST
JK Rowling Fan in Aleppo Is Now Homeless
Bana Alabed, 7, in a photo tweeted on Sunday.   (Twitter)

Days after JK Rowling sent her Harry Potter books, 7-year-old Bana Alabed no longer has a home in which to read them. Since September, Bana's mother has amassed 136,000 followers on Twitter by revealing the horrifying realities of life in Aleppo, Syria, which led Rowling to reach out. But the woman's tweets—including an image of the bloodied body of a child—betrayed a new level of fear in recent days as she warned that bombs were falling near her home. On Sunday, her tweets became more panicked. "The army got in, this could be our last days sincerely talking," she wrote, per NBC News. "Under heavy bombardments now, can't be alive anymore. When we die, keep talking for 200,000 still inside. Bye," she added.

A few hours later she tweeted a photo of Bana covered in dust, explaining she "almost died" when the family's home was bombed. "In between death and life now, please keep praying for us," reads the most recent tweet, sent around 10am local time Monday. State TV and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights—which estimates 219 civilians died on Sunday, per the Guardian—say rebel forces have lost a third of their territory in Aleppo in recent days as pro-government forces took control of the strategic Sakhour district, which divides rebel-held territory, per the BBC. Officials say up to 10,000 residents fled to government-controlled areas. However, a rep for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Syria says 250,000 people remain in need of help. (More Syria stories.)

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