Aleppo: Evacuation of civilians from eastern areas delayed

Hours after a planned evacuation of people from bombarded areas of eastern Aleppo, no one has left, according to a monitoring group. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a statement that several buses remained idle in

neighborhoods of the stricken city, over two hours after the evacuation was due to commence.

The first group of civilians scheduled to leave is supposed to consist of 70 injured people and family members -- a total of 150 people. Rebel fighters were also offered safe passage out of the devastated city under a ceasefire deal brokered largely by Turkey. Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council Tuesday that the Syrian government has established control over eastern Aleppo. 

"Over the last hour we've received information that the military activities in east Aleppo have stopped," Churkin said. Syrians fleeing the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood on Tuesday. Aleppo Media Center posted to its Facebook page on Tuesday that a ceasefire had been announced in the city "in preparation for the evacuation of civilians from besieged areas through safe passages." 

The ceasefire and evacuation agreement was reached with "Turkish mediation," a commander in the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham said. Al-Quds Hospital Director Dr. Hamza al-Khatib said Christiane Amanpour that the regime has committed "a lot of executions." Even children get slaughtered, he said -- especially if they come from families that have opposed Assad's government. "People are scared to go out in the street. 

Dead bodies haven't been taken to the graveyard to be buried," he said. "A lot of people are scared to go to graveyards to bury their own family members. A lot of dead bodies are in front of the hospital. And no one can come here to take them to get buried." He said that for some, even death is more welcome than life under Assad rule. "A lot of neighborhoods have fallen down, and now it's under the regime control," he said Tuesday. 

"Now we only have left six neighborhoods. We are very afraid that all of us may be arrested or killed. Actually, most of the people wish that they may be killed (by) shelling rather than being arrested and captured and Assad (is) president." The Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed that talks between rebels in eastern Aleppo and the Russian military led to the ceasefire deal. Under the agreement, civilians and then opposition fighters will evacuate to nearby Idlib, the ministry said. There has been no confirmation of a cessation of hostilities or an evacuation agreement by Syrian state media. 

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday to address the situation. Afterward, Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy to Syria, said he was informed by the Russian ambassador that an agreement on Aleppo was reached. But the United Nations still needs to verify the deal, de Mistura said. "We need to verify that on the ground, that they have reached an agreement with the armed opposition. It is imminent, if not already taking place," he said. 

"It's not clear to me yet as whether they are allowed to withdraw with their light weapons, which was one of the issues which had been discussed, or without weapons." De Mistura also reiterated the need for the UN to have access to eastern Aleppo to independently verify what is going on there. The developments came as government forces continued their advance on the last rebel-held neighborhoods in Aleppo in their bid to retake the city, once Syria's commercial and cultural heart. 

Earlier, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Rupert Colville, said he had been told that 82 civilians, including women and children, were shot in their homes or on the streets Monday. The gruesome reports of executions prompted the UN Security Council's emergency meeting Tuesday afternoon at the urging of the United Kingdom and France. Syrian residents fleeing eastern Aleppo in fear on December 7. 

"We have collectively failed the people of Syria," said UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. Rebel groups held eastern Aleppo for more than four years after the Arab Spring uprising and a Syrian regime siege on the area had essentially cut it off from the outside world, sparking a humanitarian crisis there. Thousands were fleeing Monday as bombs continued to fall on the remaining rebel-held areas of the city.

Activists said anyone with links to the rebels who seized control of the enclave in 2012 was being hunted down."Every hour, butcheries are carried out," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said. Syrian children flee with their families from the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood in Aleppo on Tuesday. 

The Syrian government did not comment on the killings in state-run media. The Assad regime was already in control of western Aleppo and in just over two weeks has taken most if not all of the east. Seizing the whole of Aleppo would put the government in control of Syria's five major cities, marking a turning point in the war.