The cut-off is a major challenge to the government's effort throughout the nearly 6-year-old civil war to keep the capital as insulated as possible.

Cardinal Bechara Rai, patriarch of Maronite Catholics, appealed to the international community to work to end terrorism "that is killing and displacing families and depriving them of their rights and dignities."

Speaking from Baghdad on Dec. 14, Kevin Hartigan, Catholic Relief Services' regional director for the Middle East, Central Asia and Europe told America that his team was bracing for what may be unprecedented numbers of people in flight from the contested city.

It is not a good time to be a journalist in Turkey.