Evacuations underway in devastated eastern Aleppo

BEIRUT – Hundreds of people were evacuated from the besieged rebel enclave of eastern Aleppo on Thursday with plans for more to soon leave the devastated area.

Dozens of ambulances and buses carrying the evacuees left eastern Aleppo for an opposition-held area in the western Aleppo countryside, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor said.

Those who evacuated the town included 50 injured people along with hundreds of civilians, the Observatory added.

The first group was made up of 951 people, including 334 rebel fighters, a Syrian military official said.

A second convoy carrying nearly 1,200 people left several hours later, according to Turkish media reports citing government sources.

The evacuations come after months of siege and fighting between government forces and rebels.

President Bashar Assad said the events marked the “liberation” of the northern Syrian city, which is now a shell of the economic hub it once was.

“The operation of liberating Aleppo will change time into history,” Assad was quoted as saying on the presidential website.

“This event is bigger than the word congratulation.”

The United Nations said its agencies were bracing for up to 100,000 people to arrive from eastern Aleppo to the rebel-held Idlib province in northwestern Syria.

Senior U.N. envoy Jan Egeland, however, warned that those who flee will not necessarily find safety and peace in their new destination.

“I am afraid for what may come when this operation is over,” he said in Geneva.

The U.N. is in contact with Turkey “for major new camps that could be set up” in the neighboring country in the wake of the evacuation, Egeland added.

At the Security Council in New York, France called for the deployment of U.N. observers in Aleppo. “It is critically important to have international observers under the surveillance of the U.N. to oversee the situation,” French ambassador to the U.N. Francois Delattre said.

U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called for an immediate, verifiable, durable cease-fire for all parties in Aleppo as a precursor to talks on ending the broader Syrian civil war.

“The killing and the suffering in Syria could stop and it could stop very, very quickly if Russia and the (Bashar Assad) regime made the decision to do so,” Kerry said, denouncing the regime’s “purposeful” slaughter of civilians and warning against a genocide like the massacre in Srebrenica during the Bosnia War.

The evacuations come after days of uncertainty about the fate of those left in the rebel section of eastern Aleppo that has been under a tight siege by Assad’s forces since July.

Assad’s forces began the ground offensive to capture rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo exactly one month ago.

The areas have been under control of the armed opposition since 2012.

Injured and sick people had begun to gather in the bombed-out streets in cold, winter weather after sunrise Thursday, preparing to board vehicles and head to safety.

Thousands are still believed to be inside the blocks under rebel control, which is just 2 percent of the size of the original enclave.

Russia, a key backer of Assad, has begun evacuating about 5,000 militants and their families from eastern Aleppo under an order from President Vladimir Putin, a Russian general said.

A humanitarian corridor stretching more than 12 miles has been established for the evacuation, including “15 kilometers (9 miles) through territories controlled by illegally armed groups,” General Valery Gerasimov said in comments carried by state news agency Tass.

A cease-fire went into effect in the middle of the night and while fighting had subsided, there were reports of clashes, including rebel attacks on government positions and civilian areas.

On Thursday, local rescue workers said a convoy carrying the wounded from the rebel pocket in Aleppo was fired upon, injuring five people, but the evacuation deal still appeared to be on track.

An original evacuation deal, brokered by Turkey and Russia, was meant to be implemented 24 hours earlier, but it collapsed amid disputes before anyone got out.

The latest evacuations are Russia’s and Turkey’s second attempt at a deal.

According to rebels, the new agreement is meant to see civilians and wounded people evacuated first and fighters would be removed from the enclave in the coming days.

Separately, a group of 29 buses and ambulances will head to two Shiite villages in Idlib, both of which are under a siege imposed by rebel forces, to start an evacuation operation there, a Syrian government official said.

U.S. President Barack Obama spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to thank him for his work in brokering a cease-fire and allowing the evacuation, the White House said.