AFP, Dec. 19, 2016 – Thousands of traumatized Syrians left the rebel enclave of Aleppo on Monday as the UN Security Council voted to deploy observers to the battered city to monitor the evacuations.
Families had spent hours waiting in below-freezing temperatures, sheltering from the rain in bombed-out apartment blocks and waiting desperately for news on a new wave of departures.
After an agonizing delay, the operation resumed on Monday under a complex agreement that will see regime forces exert full control over Syria’s second city.
Around 5,000 people traveled in 75 buses out of Aleppo on Monday, said Ingy Sedky, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
They crossed the front line headed for rebel-held territory elsewhere in northern Syria after around 350 other people got out during the night.
“We will continue throughout the day — and however long it takes — to evacuate the thousands more who are still waiting,” Sedky told AFP.
Ahmad al-Dbis, who heads a team of doctors and volunteers coordinating evacuations, saw dozens of buses and ambulances arrive at the staging ground west of Aleppo.
He said they were in “a very bad state after waiting for more than 16 hours” at a regime checkpoint without being allowed off the buses.
The government had suspended evacuations on Friday, insisting that people also be allowed to leave two northwestern villages under rebel siege.
According to the ICRC and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, around 500 people left in a dawn convoy out of Fuaa and Kafraya.
Aleppo ‘tweeter’ safe
The Observatory said at least 14,000 people, including 4,000 rebels, have left the opposition sector since the evacuations began on Thursday.
At least 7,000 remain, according to the Britain-based monitor.
A rebel representative said that hundreds of people would also be evacuated from Zabadani and Madaya, two army-besieged rebel towns near the border with Lebanon, as part of the deal.
Dbis said the latest evacuees from Aleppo were in a “terrible state” after their departure was delayed for hours in temperatures well below freezing, compounding their plight from months of siege and bombardment by the army.