Thousands of people were evacuated on Thursday from the last rebel bastion in Aleppo, the first to leave under a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
Assad said in a video statement the taking of Aleppo - his biggest prize in more than five years of civil war - was a historic moment.
A first convoy of ambulances and buses with nearly 1,000 people aboard drove out of the devastated rebel-held area of Aleppo, which was besieged and bombarded for months by Syrian government forces, a Reuters reporter on the scene said.
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Syrian state television reported later that two further convoys of 15 buses each had also left east Aleppo.
The second convoy had reached the rebel-held area of al-Rashideen, an insurgent said.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said late on Thursday that some 3,000 civilians and more than 40 wounded people, including children, had already been evacuated.
ICRC official Robert Mardini told Reuters there were no clear plans yet for how to ship out rebel fighters, who will be allowed to leave for other areas outside of government control under the ceasefire deal.
Women cried out in celebration as the first buses passed through a government-held area, and some waved the Syrian flag.
An elderly woman, who had gathered with others in the government area to watch the convoy removing the rebels, raised her hands to the sky, saying: “God save us from this crisis, and from the [militants]. They brought us only destruction.”
Wissam Zarqa, an English teacher in the rebel zone, said most people were happy to be leaving safely.
However, he said: “Some of them are angry they are leaving their city. I saw some of them crying. This is almost my feeling in a way.”
Earlier, ambulances trying to evacuate people came under fire from fighters loyal to the Syrian government, and three people were injured, a rescue service spokesman said.
“Thousands of people are in need of evacuation, but the first and most urgent thing is wounded, sick and children, including orphans,” said Jan Egeland, the UN humanitarian adviser for Syria.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN special envoy for Syria, said about 50,000 people remained in rebel-held Aleppo, of whom about 10,000 would be evacuated to nearby Idlib province. The rest would move to government-held city districts.
The Russian military said the government in Damascus had given security guarantees to all rebels willing to leave Aleppo and that the Russians were monitoring the situation using drones.
Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment, even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.
The once-flourishing economic centre with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverised during a civil war which has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world’s worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.
International reaction
The US was forced to watch from the sidelines as the Syrian government and its allies, including Russia, mounted an assault to pin down the rebels in an ever-diminishing pocket of territory, culminating in this week’s ceasefire.
US secretary of state John Kerry said on Thursday that the Syrian government was carrying out “nothing short of a massacre” in Aleppo.
UN aid chief Stephen O’Brien will brief the Security Council on Friday on the Aleppo evacuation.
Turkey said it was considering establishing a camp in Syria for civilians being evacuated from Aleppo and that the number of people brought out of the city could reach 100,000.
In Aleppo’s rebel-held area, columns of black smoke could be seen as residents hoping to depart burned personal belongings they do not want to leave for government forces to loot.
“It’s difficult to leave your belongings knowing that your enemy is going to use them. Thugs usually will take them . . . They will take everything as a prize for kicking us out,” Zarqa said.
A senior Russian general, Viktor Poznikhir, said the Syrian army had almost finished its operations in Aleppo.
However, the war will still be far from over, with insurgents retaining their rural stronghold of Idlib province to the southwest of Aleppo, and the jihadist Islamic State group holding swathes of the east and recapturing Palmyra this week.
Rebels and their families would be taken from Aleppo towards Idlib, a city in northwestern Syria which is outside government control, the Russian defence ministry said.
Idlib province, mostly controlled by hardline Islamist groups, is not a popular destination for fighters and civilians from east Aleppo, where nationalist rebel groups predominated.
A senior European diplomat said last week that the fighters had a choice between surviving for a few weeks in Idlib or dying in Aleppo.
“For the Russians it’s simple. Place them all in Idlib and then they have all their rotten eggs in one basket.”
Idlib is already a target for Syrian and Russian air strikes, but it is unclear if the government will push for a ground assault or simply seek to contain rebels there for now.
The International Rescue Committee said: “Escaping Aleppo doesn’t mean escaping the war . . . After witnessing the ferocity of attacks on civilians in Aleppo, we are very concerned that the sieges and barrel bombs will follow the thousands who arrive in Idlib.”
Evacuation deal
The evacuation deal was expected to include the safe passage of wounded from the Shia villages of Foua and Kefraya near Idlib which are besieged by rebels.
A convoy set off to evacuate the villages on Thursday, Syrian state media said.
Efforts to evacuate eastern Aleppo began earlier in the week with a truce brokered by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey, which has backed the opposition.
That agreement broke down following renewed fighting on Wednesday and the evacuation did not take place then as planned.
A rebel official said a new truce came into effect early on Thursday. Shortly before the new deal was announced, clashes raged in Aleppo.
Government forces made a new advance in Sukkari - one of a handful of districts still held by rebels - and brought half of the neighbourhood under their control, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.
The Russian defence ministry said - before the report of the government forces’ advance in Sukkari - that the rebels controlled an enclave of only 2.5 sq km .
Military power
By taking control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shia militias from across the region.
Rebels have been backed by the US, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but that support has fallen far short of the direct military assistance given to Assad by Russia and Iran.
Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria more than a year ago turned the war in Assad’s favour after rebel advances across western Syria.
In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year.
The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State.
Reuters