Reuters, Beirut :
Convoys of evacuees travelled from a rebel-held area of Aleppo and two Shi’ite villages besieged by insurgents on Monday, a war monitor and rebels said, as a deal enabling evacuations held after a tense, days-long stand-off and before a U.N. vote.
About 10 buses left the Shi’ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, north of Idlib, towards the government lines in Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported.
The evacuation of civilians, including wounded people, from the two villages which have been besieged by rebels for years, is a condition for the Syrian army and its allies to allow thousands of fighters and civilians trapped in Aleppo to depart.
“First limited evacuations, finally, tonight from east Aleppo and Foua & Kefraya. Many thousands more are waiting to be evacuated soon,” Jan Egeland, who chairs the United Nations aid task force in Syria, tweeted late on Sunday night.
Later on Monday, the U.N. Security Council will vote in New York on a resolution to allow the international body’s staff to monitor the evacuations. The draft resolution was the result of a compromise between Russia and France, and the United States said it was expected to pass unanimously.
On Sunday, some of the buses sent to al-Foua and Kefraya to carry evacuees out were attacked and torched by armed men, who shouted “God is greatest” and brandished their weapons in front of the burning vehicles, according to a video posted online.
That incident threatened to derail the evacuations, the result of intense negotiations between Russia – the main supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – and Turkey, which backs some large rebel groups.
At stake is the fate of thousands of people still stuck in the last rebel bastion in Aleppo after a series of sudden advances by the Syrian army and allied Shi’ite militias under an intense bombardment that pulverised large sections of the city.
They have been waiting for the chance to leave Aleppo since the ceasefire and evacuation deal was agreed late last Tuesday, but have struggled to do so during days of hold-ups.
The weather in Aleppo has been wet and very cold and there is little shelter and few services in the tiny rebel zone.
Assad is backed in the war by Russian air power and Shi’ite militias including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Iraq’s Harakat al-Nujaba. The mostly Sunni rebels include groups supported by Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf monarchies.
In the square in Aleppo’s Sukari district, organizers gave every family a number to give them access to buses.
“Everyone is waiting until they are evacuated. They just want to escape,” said Salah al Attar, a former teacher with his five children, wife and mother.
Convoys of evacuees travelled from a rebel-held area of Aleppo and two Shi’ite villages besieged by insurgents on Monday, a war monitor and rebels said, as a deal enabling evacuations held after a tense, days-long stand-off and before a U.N. vote.
About 10 buses left the Shi’ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, north of Idlib, towards the government lines in Aleppo, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, reported.
The evacuation of civilians, including wounded people, from the two villages which have been besieged by rebels for years, is a condition for the Syrian army and its allies to allow thousands of fighters and civilians trapped in Aleppo to depart.
“First limited evacuations, finally, tonight from east Aleppo and Foua & Kefraya. Many thousands more are waiting to be evacuated soon,” Jan Egeland, who chairs the United Nations aid task force in Syria, tweeted late on Sunday night.
Later on Monday, the U.N. Security Council will vote in New York on a resolution to allow the international body’s staff to monitor the evacuations. The draft resolution was the result of a compromise between Russia and France, and the United States said it was expected to pass unanimously.
On Sunday, some of the buses sent to al-Foua and Kefraya to carry evacuees out were attacked and torched by armed men, who shouted “God is greatest” and brandished their weapons in front of the burning vehicles, according to a video posted online.
That incident threatened to derail the evacuations, the result of intense negotiations between Russia – the main supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – and Turkey, which backs some large rebel groups.
At stake is the fate of thousands of people still stuck in the last rebel bastion in Aleppo after a series of sudden advances by the Syrian army and allied Shi’ite militias under an intense bombardment that pulverised large sections of the city.
They have been waiting for the chance to leave Aleppo since the ceasefire and evacuation deal was agreed late last Tuesday, but have struggled to do so during days of hold-ups.
The weather in Aleppo has been wet and very cold and there is little shelter and few services in the tiny rebel zone.
Assad is backed in the war by Russian air power and Shi’ite militias including Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement and Iraq’s Harakat al-Nujaba. The mostly Sunni rebels include groups supported by Turkey, the U.S. and Gulf monarchies.
In the square in Aleppo’s Sukari district, organizers gave every family a number to give them access to buses.
“Everyone is waiting until they are evacuated. They just want to escape,” said Salah al Attar, a former teacher with his five children, wife and mother.
