'Someone save me now': Aleppo girl's Harry Potter joy shattered by friend's death

Editor's Note: This story contains images and video from social media that some readers may find distressing

A seven-year-old girl in rebel-held Aleppo, who made headlines with tweets thanking Harry Potter author JK Rowling for sending her e-copies of her books, has described how she is crying for a young friend killed in an overnight rocket strike.

Bana Alabed was sent the books by Rowling's representatives on Wednesday after her mother had used Twitter to get in touch with the British writer, telling Rowling how much her daughter had enjoyed the movie version of her story about a schoolboy wizard. 

The Twitter account, which is in Bana's name, had already received widespread media attention for its uinflinching account of life under siege from a child's perspective, gaining almost 100,000 followers.

On Thursday, Bana had tweeted a message to Rowling to tell her that she had started reading the book, as well as photos of herself reading the books to her two younger brothers.

But just two hours after the last of that series of tweets, Bana tweeted an image of the body of a young girl she said had been killed in a bomb attack.

A subsequent tweet apparently posted by her mother, Fatemah, said: "I swear I am crying tonight. My student, her father were killed in rocket tonight. The bombs becoming louder."

Middle East Eye is unable to verify details of the attack but rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo have been subjected to sustained bombardment by Syrian government and Russian forces in recent days. 

Two hours later, Bana posted a video of herself sitting by her bed as a nearby explosion shook the room and she said: "Someone save me now."

Rebel-held Aleppo has been subjected to air strikes by Syrian government and Russian air forces for months, with surviving civilians enduring diminishing food supplies and power shortages. Syrian and Russian forces are also accused of attacking hospitals, while rebels are accused of firing mortars into civilian areas of the government-held west of the city.

Bana's tweets, which show the aftermath of air strikes and often include appeals for help with the hashtag #StandWithAleppo, have attracted widespread media attention. A BBC profile of Bana last month said that her mother had started teaching her to speak English when she was four.

But her exchange of messages with JK Rowling offered a glimpse of how children are attempting to distract themselves from the war outside.