Aleppo - The evacuation of
rebel-held eastern Aleppo due to start at dawn has been delayed,
perhaps until Thursday, with an opposition official blaming
Shi'ite militias allied to President Bashar al-Assad for the
hold-up.
A ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, Assad's most
powerful ally, and Turkey ended years of fighting in the city
and has given the Syrian leader his biggest victory yet after
more than five years of war.
Officials in the military alliance fighting in support of
Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the
evacuation was delayed.
But rebel sources said the ceasefire remained in place
despite the delay in the evacuation plan.
Sources on Tuesday had given different expected start times
for the evacuation. A military official in the pro-Assad
alliance had said the evacuation was due to start at 5am, while opposition officials had been expecting a
first group of wounded people to leave earlier.
However, none had left by dawn, according to a Reuters
witness waiting at the agreed point of departure. Twenty buses
were waiting there with their engines running but showed no sign
of moving into Aleppo's rebel-held eastern districts.
"There is certainly a delay," said Rami Abdulrahman,
director of the Syrian Observatory, a war monitor.
A general view shows the damage in the government-held al-Shaar neighborhood of Aleppo.Picture: Reuters
Officials with Aleppo-based rebel groups accused Shi'ite
militias backed by Iran of obstructing the Russian-brokered
deal. The pro-opposition Orient TV cited its correspondent as
saying the plan may be delayed until Thursday.
People in eastern Aleppo have been packing their bags and
burning personal possessions as they prepare to leave, fearing
looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militia allies
when they restore control.
The evacuation was the culmination of two weeks of rapid
advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents
back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air
strikes and artillery fire.
By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power
of his military coalition, aided by Russia's air force and an
array of Shi'ite militias from across the region.
Rebels groups have been supported by the United States,
Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed
has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to
Assad by Russia and Iran.
Russia's decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months
ago turned the war in Assad's favour after rebel advances across
key areas of western Syria.
In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds
near Damascus this year.
However, Assad is far from taking back all of Syria. Wide
areas of the country remain in the hands of armed groups
including Islamic State, which this week managed to retake the
desert city of Palmyra from Syria's army.
Russia regards the fall of Aleppo as a major victory against
terrorists, as it and Assad characterise all the rebel groups,
both Islamist and nationalist, fighting to oust him.
But at the United Nations, the United States said the
violence in the city, besieged and bombarded for months,
represented "modern evil".
The once-flourishing economic centre with its renowned
ancient sites has been pulverised during the war, which has
killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world's
worst refugee crisis and allowed the rise of Islamic State.
As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen
over the plight of the 250 000 civilians who were thought to
remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army
advance began at the end of November.
Tens of thousands of them fled to parts of the city held by
the government or by a Kurdish militia, and tens of thousands
more retreated further into the rebel enclave as it rapidly
shrank under the army's lightning advance.
Children walk together as they flee deeper into the remaining rebel-held areas of Aleppo. Picture: Reuters
The rout of rebels from their shrinking territory in Aleppo
sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in
bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a "complete
meltdown of humanity". There were food and water shortages in
rebel areas, with all hospitals closed.
On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about
reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi
fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east
Aleppo districts. It accused them of "slaughter".
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street
trying to flee and shot in their homes," said Rupert Colville, a
U.N. spokesman. "There could be many more."
The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture
among those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had
"kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields".
Fear stalked the city's streets. Some survivors trudged in
the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few
districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and
awaited the Syrian army's arrival.
For all of them, fear of arrest, conscription or summary
execution added to the daily terror of bombardment.
"People are saying the troops have lists of families of
fighters and are asking them if they had sons with the
terrorists. (They are) then either left or shot and left to
die," said Abu Malek al-Shamali in Seif al-Dawla, one of the
last rebel-held districts.
Terrible conditions were described by city residents.
Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead
bodies lay in the streets. "There are many corpses in Fardous
and Bustan al-Qasr with no one to bury them," he said.