THOUSANDS of people have fled eastern Aleppo after simultaneous advances inside the divided city by Syrian government and Kurdish-led forces.

Rebel defences collapsed as government troops pushed into the city’s Sakhour neighbourhood, coming within under half a mile of commanding a corridor in the area for the first time since rebels swept into the city in 2012, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.

Kurdish-led forces operating independently of the rebels and the government, meanwhile, seized the Bustan al-Basha neighbourhood, allowing thousands of civilians to flee the decimated district to the predominantly Kurdish Sheikh Maqsoud, in the city’s north, according to Ahmad Hiso Araj, an official with the Syrian Democratic Forces.

The government’s push, backed by thousands of Shiite militia fighters from Lebanon, Iraq, and Iran, and under the occasional cover of the Russian air force, has laid waste to Aleppo’s eastern neighbourhoods.

An estimated quarter of a million people are trapped in wretched conditions in the city’s opposition-held eastern districts since the government sealed its siege of the enclave in late August.

Food supplies are running perilously low, the UN has warned on Thursday, and a relentless air assault by government forces has damaged or destroyed every hospital in the area.

Residents in east Aleppo said in distressed messages on social media that thousands of people were fleeing to the city’s government-controlled western neighbourhoods, away from a merciless assault, or deeper into the opposition-held eastern areas.

“The situation in besieged Aleppo [is] very, very bad, thousands of eastern residents are moving to the western side of the city,” said Khaled Khatib, a photographer for the Syrian Civil Defense search-and-rescue group, also known as the White Helmets. “Aleppo is going to die,” he posted on Twitter.

The Britain-based Observatory, which monitors the conflict through a network of local contacts, said around 1,700 civilians had escaped to government-controlled areas and another 2,500 to Kurdish authorities.

More than 250 civilians have been killed in the government’s bombardment of eastern Aleppo over past 13 days, according to the Observatory.

Locals reported thousands more were moving within the eastern neighbourhoods, away from the front lines, but staying inside areas of opposition control.

“The conditions are terrifying” said 28-year-old Modar Sakho, a nurse in eastern Aleppo.

Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in eastern Aleppo and an outspoken government opponent, said some families would stay put in the face of advancing troops.

Syrian state media reported government forces had seized the Jabal Badro neighbourhood and entered Sakhour on Sunday, after taking control of the Masaken Hanano neighbourhood on Saturday.

Syrian state TV broadcast a video showing a teary reunion between a soldier and his family after nearly five years apart, according to the report. It said the family had been trapped in Masaken Hanano.

The Lebanese Al-Manar TV channel reported from the neighbourhood, showing workers and soldiers clearing debris against a backdrop of bombed-out buildings.