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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
World
Matthew Weaver

Operation to evacuate people from Aleppo begins – as it happened

Ambulances and buses in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, where an evacuation of the wounded has begun.
Ambulances and buses in a rebel-held area of Aleppo, where an evacuation of the wounded has begun. Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

The ICRC has told Kareem Shaheen that more buses and ambulances are heading back to Aleppo.

As the evacuation is likely to take several days, we’re going to pause the liveblog for now. There will be more updates, analysis and commentary in our Syria section.

Updated

Assad hails historical turning point

Syria’s president Bashar al-Assad has hailed the fall of Aleppo as a historical turning point. In a video released by his office he says: “What is happening today is the writing of history.”

In philosophical and whimsical, message he talks about the fall of Aleppo in the context of the birth of Christ the fall of the USSR. The reclaiming of Aleppo will be something of similar historical significance, and a key turning point in the conflict, he says.

Updated

The UN’s Jan Egeland is critical of the international response to the crisis in Aleppo.

Russia’s defence ministry says rebels have been driven out of all areas of Aleppo. It says it is winding up its military campaign after the last 3,000 rebels left the city, according to the news agency Tass.

It also claimed it has not bombed Aleppo since 18 October. RIA Novosti says 108,000 civilians have moved to secure areas.

Summary

Here’s a summary of the latest on the evacuation of eastern Aleppo.

  • Hundreds of people have been evacuated from eastern Aleppo after a long-awaited operation to evacuate people from besieged districts got underway . State media said 951 people had been escorted out of the area.
  • The International Committee of the the Red Cross confirmed that 13 ambulances and 20 buses carrying civilians and the wounded left east Aleppo. A second convoy is expected to depart later on Thursday.
  • A Turkish official said that 50,000 people are expected to evacuated in the next three days. The UN’s Jan Egeland says there may be 30,000 people left in besieged pockets of Aleppo, after 50,000 people have fled.
  • Russia told the UN that the evacuation would be quick and peaceful. The UN is monitoring the process but has not brokered the deal.
  • A convoy of aid trucks and ambulances is also travelling to the besieged Shia villages of Fua and Kefraya as part of a ceasefire deal. The inclusion of villages was a concession to Iran, which reportedly opposed the previous ceasefire deal negotiated by Turkish intelligence and the Russian military.
  • The evacuation was initially delayed amid reports that Syrian government fighters opened fire on a convoy as it prepared to leave rebel-held areas. At least three people were wounded according to the rescue service.
  • Later the ICRC said its teams were “safe” and doing all they could to help save lives.
  • Under the terms of the deal a ceasefire went into effect at 2.30am (00.30GMT) Aleppo time. The new ceasefire agreement came a day after a previous evacuation deal appeared to unravel in the face of Iranian opposition.
  • The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, issued a joint statement on Wednesday night urging an end to the ceasefire violations and “reaffirmed their commitment to start the evacuation of civilians and the opposition through safe corridors as soon as possible”.
  • The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo would mean the opposition would cede the city, the last significant urban stronghold where it maintained an active presence. Civilians left in the opposition districts have been posting farewell messages on walls in eastern Aleppo.

Updated

Syrian Red Crescent staff and people from east Aleppo on a bus during Thursday’s evacuation operation.
Syrian Red Crescent staff and people from east Aleppo on a bus during Thursday’s evacuation operation. Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images

A Syrian official has told Reuters that a second convoy of 15 buses could soon leave eastern Aleppo after the first convoy escorted 951 people.

“The initial information is that the operation will continue today. Around 15 new buses are being prepared to evacuate the second group from the areas under the militants’ control,” its source said.

Meanwhile, a Turkish official told the agency that 50,000 people are expected to evacuated in the next three days.

Some of the buses used to evacuate people from eastern Aleppo.
Some of the buses used to evacuate people from eastern Aleppo. Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images

Updated

Lord Michael Williams, former UN under secretary general and UN special coordinator for Lebanon, said events in Aleppo had left the authority of the UN “in tatters”.

Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s World at One programme he said: “The pictures of the last several days from Aleppo, personally I found extraordinarily disturbing. They were all too redolent of the Nazi evacuation of the Jews from the Warsaw ghetto in the 1940s or Bosnia Serb evacuations of Muslim enclaves such as Srebrenica in 1995/96. To see this happening 20 years later on the eve of Christmas is deeply shocking. And is an indictment of the international system.”

Williams, now a fellow at the Chatham House thinktank, said the crisis in Aleppo was also a “terrible indictment of Obama”:

He has done nothing. When grave crimes of humanity have occurred again. They [the US] alone could have made a military intervention. The ghosts of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya have haunted the war in Syria, but something might have been done, not so much in terms of a dramatic grand peace plan ... but an attempt to momentarily stabilise the situation around Aleppo and provide for the evacuation of women and children and the injured.”

Updated

951 leave eastern Aleppo

Almost a thousand people have left eastern Aleppo, according to a Syrian official.

The official told Reuters that 951 people left eastern Aleppo on Thursday in the first convoy to depart from the rebel enclave. The convoy included women, children and the wounded, the official said.

Updated

A teacher in east Aleppo, who is waiting to be evacuated, said there were mixed feelings among the residents, writes Kareem Shaheem.

He said some were angry that they are being forced to leave and others happy that they the violence will stop. He said some locals were burning their belongings in their homes so they aren’t looted by pro-regime forces when they enter the besieged districts.

Syrian officials said the first convoy to leave eastern Aleppo took out women, children and the wounded.

Updated

Donald Tusk, the European council president, speaks with the mayor of eastern Aleppo during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels
Donald Tusk, the European council president, speaks with the mayor of eastern Aleppo during a round table meeting at an EU summit in Brussels. Photograph: Geert Vanden Wijngaert/AP

The mayor of eastern Aleppo, Brita Hagi Hasan, says he fears 50,000 civilians in eastern Aleppo “are about to be victims of a general massacre”.

Speaking in Brussels at an EU summit he called for “a courageous position from the European Union, a position of sending of sending some forces to monitor the evacuation of civilians”.

“We never asked any country to go to war ... we only ask to save civilians and secure some corridors for their evacuation,” Hasan said.

Speaking as civilians began to be escorted from the city, he said more than 800 wounded people in eastern Aleppo need evacuating urgently and over 5,000 others who are hurt should also leave.

Hasan was invited into the EU summit, and sat alongside the European council president Donald Tusk as he opened the meeting.

In private talks with Hasan, Tusk acknowledged that “the last thing your people in Aleppo need today is more words of sympathy”.

“The only thing you need today is real and effective assistance,” a visibly emotional Tusk said.

Updated

New footage purports to show how scared Aleppo’s evacuees are of being hit in airstrikes. They run for cover as a jet passes low overhead.

Reuters has photographs of dozens of people, mostly men, preparing to leave rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

People gather to be evacuated from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo
People gather to be evacuated from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters
People gather to be evacuated from al-Sukkari rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo
People gather to be evacuated from al-Sukkari rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

Al Jazeera has footage from activist/citizen journalist Zouhir al-Shimale of the first ambulances leaving eastern Aleppo with wounded civilians.

The ICRC has confirmed that 13 ambulances and 20 buses carrying civilians and the wounded have left the besieged east Aleppo. Some are critically wounded, it said.

Updated

People get on buses to be evacuated from the al-Sukkari rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo
People get on buses to be evacuated from the al-Sukkari rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo Photograph: Abdalrhman Ismail/Reuters

Activists in Aleppo say thousands of families are leaving the city as more buses and ambulances cross into government-held areas.

First wounded people leave eastern Aleppo.

The ICRC’s Robert Mardini has confirmed that the first group of 26 wounded people are being escorted out of eastern Aleppo.

Syrian state TV has showed footage of at least 10 ambulance and a long line of green buses leaving rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo.

Russia pledges peaceful evacuation of 1,000 people

Russia told a United Nations humanitarian taskforce meeting that the evacuation of more than 1,000 people from eastern Aleppo would be quick and peaceful, Egeland also said.

Reuters quoted him saying: “Today Russia detailed how the evacuation would take place in the taskforce and they confirmed that Russians would be monitoring and that this is a swift, unbureaucratric, non-intrusive evacuation and no harm will meet these who are evacuated.”

Updated

Jan Egeland
Jan Egeland Photograph: Salvatore Di Nolfi/AP

The UN’s Jan Egeland says there may be 30,000 people left in besieged pockets of Aleppo, after 50,000 people have fled.

Speaking to reporters he also said there were three parts to the evacuation, which the UN was monitoring but had not mediated. He said:

“It is a three pronged evacuation. It is medical evacuation of wounded and sick. It’s a evacuation of vulnerable civilians and it is evacuation of fighters. This is not an agreement mediated by the United Nations. It is an agreement that has been made in direct talks between the parties to this war. We were not part of it and we were only invited this morning to monitor.”

The ICRC and rebels are now saying that first wave of wounded has not left eastern Aleppo.

Updated

Summary

Here’s a summary of what’s happened so far:

  • A long-awaited operation to evacuate people from besieged districts of east Aleppo has begun. The ICRC says it has started to evacuate 200 wounded people.
  • State media footage showed ambulances moving into rebel held eastern Aleppo. Activists said the first wounded civilians have been driven out of the area.
  • A convoy of aid trucks and ambulances is also travelling to the besieged Shia villages of Fua and Kefraya as part of a ceasefire deal. The inclusion of villages was a concession to Iran, which reportedly opposed the previous ceasefire deal negotiated by Turkish intelligence and the Russian military.
  • The evacuation was initially delayed amid reports that Syrian government fighters opened fire on a convoy as it prepared to leave rebel-held areas. At least three people were wounded according to the rescue service.
  • Later the ICRC said its teams were “safe” and doing all they could to help save lives.
  • Russia defence ministry and the Syrian state media said up to 5,000 Syrian rebels and their family members from eastern Aleppo has begun.
  • Under the terms of the deal a ceasefire went into effect at 2.30am (00.30GMT) Aleppo time. The new ceasefire agreement came a day after a previous evacuation deal appeared to unravel in the face of Iranian opposition.
  • The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, issued a joint statement on Wednesday night urging an end to the ceasefire violations and “reaffirmed their commitment to start the evacuation of civilians and the opposition through safe corridors as soon as possible”.
  • The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo would mean the opposition would cede the city, the last significant urban stronghold where it maintained an active presence. Civilians left in the opposition districts have been posting farewell messages on walls in eastern Aleppo.


Updated

Rebels have scrawled graffiti messages to pro-Assad forces before fleeing eastern Aleppo.

One said: “Under every destroyed building are families buried with their dreams by Assad and his allies.”

Another says: “We will return, Aleppo. Our destroyed buildings are a witness of our resistance and your criminality”

Aleppo graffiti two
Aleppo graffiti messages

Updated

Iran has denied reports that it blocked a ceasefire plan in Aleppo earlier this week, suggesting that Turkey was spreading fake news, writes Saeed Kamali Dehghan.

“This is not true and is seen here as a media propaganda against Iran,” said Tehran’s foreign ministry spokesman, Bahman Qasemi, according to the Fars news agency.

“Iran wants all countries involved in Syria to observe a ceasefire and prevent terrorists from re-arming. We have always been pursuing peace, stability and cleansing the country of terrorists in Syria.”

Qasemi said Tehran was in touch with the government of Syria to establish a ceasefire and facilitate medical aid. “In a situation where Aleppo is close to be be fully liberated, how could Iran create problems and prevent this?” he asked.

“Some countries in the region,” the spokesman said referring to Turkey without naming it, “are so infuriated that they have resorted to spread fake news about Iran [and its role in Syria].”

Rebels in eastern Aleppo have told Kareen Shaheen that the first wave of wounded evacuees have made it to the opposition-controlled countryside west of Aleppo.

Updated

Here’s Syrian state media footage showing ambulances moving into rebel held eastern Aleppo.

Some 29 trucks and ambulances are heading to the besieged Shia villages of Fua and Kefraya as part of the ceasefire deal, Reuters reports.

A spokesperson for Noureddine al-Zinki, one of the armed opposition groups in Aleppo, said the deal would allow the evacuation of wounded people in Fua and Kefraya, two Shia villages in Idlib province that are besieged by rebels.

The inclusion of Fua and Kefraya was a concession to Iran, which had opposed the previous ceasefire deal negotiated by Turkish intelligence and the Russian military.

ICRC says its teams are safe

The ICRC’s Middle East director, Robert Mardini, says the evacuation is “well underway” and that Red Cross teams are “safe and doing all they can”.

There are unconfirmed reports that the first injured people have been driven out of eastern Aleppo.

The Syrian Red Crescent confirms that the evacuation is underway.

Brita Hagi Hasan
Brita Hagi Hasan Photograph: Ian Langsdon/EPA

Brita Hagi Hasan, mayor of eastern Aleppo, is to brief the European Council on the crisis in Aleppo, at a summit in Brussels today.

EU leaders are set to stop short of threatening any new sanctions against Russia over the violence in Aleppo, according to AFP.

Instead they have issued a draft statement which “strongly condemns” the assault by the “Syrian regime and its allies, notably Russia” and calls on them to allow aid in to Aleppo.

The statement obtained by AFP says “the EU is considering all available options.”

Hasan wants the EU to go much further. Buzz Feed’s Alberto Nardelli quotes him urging the EU to “breathe some life back into international law”.

Wounded Syrian civilians and their families gather at the rebel-held al-Amiriyah neighbourhood as they wait to be evacuated to the government-controlled area of Ramoussa on the southern outskirts of Aleppo.
Wounded Syrian civilians and their families gather at the rebel-held al-Amiriyah neighbourhood as they wait to be evacuated to the government-controlled area of Ramoussa on the southern outskirts of Aleppo. Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images

The evacuation of 5,000 Syrian rebels and their family members from eastern Aleppo has begun, according to Russia’s TASS news agency citing the Russian defence ministry.

A Russian military official was quoted as saying the rebels and their families would be evacuated via a humanitarian corridor that was 21 kilometres (13.05 miles) in length.

The Red Cross confirms the start of a more modest operation to evacuate up to 250 wounded civilians.

Updated

ICRC confirms start of evacuation of 200 wounded civilians

The International Committee of the Red Cross confirms that an operation to evacuate 200 wounded civilians is underway.

Updated

Green buses may have move into eastern Aleppo but activists have told Human Rights Watch that no one has yet been moved out.

A long line of buses was shown on state television crossing to the rebel sector.

Ranj Alaaldin, a Middle East scholar at the London School of Economics, says ceasefires and humanitarian corridors are only temporary fixes to the plight of Syria’s civilians. In an opinion piece for the Guardian he writes:

Temporary fixes like ceasefires or humanitarian corridors only provide political cover for, and distract attention away from, further atrocities and human rights abuses. Calls for a no-fly zone have been dismissed in the past, as have other measures seen as having the potential to escalate the conflict; but we mustn’t forget that it is the west’s averseness to risk that the Assad regime and its backers in Moscow and Tehran thrive on. Where the international community disengages, dictators and armed gangs fill the vacuum.

More than 20 buses from government held areas of Aleppo have moved into rebel held areas, a witness told Reuters.

A wounded boy sits inside an ambulance as Syrian civilians and their families gather at the rebel-held al-Amiriyah neighbourhood as they wait to be evacuated to the government-controlled area of Ramoussa on the southern outskirts of Aleppo.
A wounded boy sits inside an ambulance as Syrian civilians and their families gather at the rebel-held al-Amiriyah neighbourhood as they wait to be evacuated to the government-controlled area of Ramoussa on the southern outskirts of Aleppo. Photograph: Karam Al-Masri/AFP/Getty Images

Here’s Russian military footage purporting to show green evacuation buses moving into eastern Aleppo.

ICRC says evacuation is starting

Ambulances have begun moving towards east Aleppo, the first step in a long awaited evacuation of the wounded in the besieged districts of the city, Kareem Shaheen reports.

“The operation is starting, ambulances are moving,” an ICRC spokesperson told the Guardian.

The ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent are overseeing the evacuation.

Updated

The Guardian’s Kareem Shaheen is also hearing that the evacuation is underway.

There are still conflicting reports about whether the evacuation is underway.

Now Reuters reports that ambulances have started to move in a rebel-held area of eastern Aleppo.

Earlier the White Helmets said the evacuation had been suspended after ambulances were shot at. The Red Cross said it was on hold. But the UN’s Jan Egeland said it was underway amid security incidents.

Footage from Syrian activists purport to show people from eastern Aleppo boarding ambulances. The group Syria Charity says no one has yet left the area.

Egeland: evacuation underway with 'security incidences'

Jan Egeland
Jan Egeland Photograph: Denis Balibouse/Reuters

The UN’s Jan Egeland says the evacuation is underway but there have already been security incidents, a snap report from Reuters says.

It quotes him saying: “We are now receiving information from the Russians that they would indeed want us to participate in the evacuation, but confirmation only seems to come now, this morning, which is very late, because it is already ongoing and there have already been security incidences.”

“Thousands of people are in need of evacuation, but the first and most urgent thing is wounded, sick and children, including orphans,” he said. “I am really hopeful because it’s long, long overdue.”

Egeland is UN’s humanitarian adviser on Syria.

Buses and ambulances wait to evacuate civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo on Thursday
Buses and ambulances wait to evacuate civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo on Thursday Photograph: Omar Sanadiki/Reuters

An AFP correspondent at an army checkpoint on the southern edges of Aleppo reports seeing at least 20 empty buses and five ambulances ready to pick up evacuees. AFP adds:

Syrian state television reported that some 4,000 rebels and their families were to be evacuated.

A senior Syrian military source confirmed to AFP that “preparations are happening now” for the evacuation.

Al-Farook Abu Bakr, the chief negotiator for the rebels, told AFP that the first convoy on Thursday would be only for wounded people, their carers and other civilians.

“The evacuations will be from Ramoussa” on the southern outskirts of Aleppo, the official from hardline Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham said.

He said an evacuation of rebel fighters would take place after the first or second convoy.

“The first batch of wounded civilians, their relatives, and some other civilian families is being prepared,” said Ahmad al-Dbis, who heads a unit of doctors and other volunteers that are coordinating the evacuation of wounded people.

He said that regime forces had fired on an ambulance bringing in the injured, killing one person and wounding two others.

Russian military footage purports to show several ambulances waiting to evacuate eastern Aleppo, amid unconfirmed claims by activists that pro-government forces shot at ambulances wounding four people.

SCD says evacuation suspended

The Syrian Civil Defence team says the plan to evacuate eastern Aleppo has been suspended because of concerns about safety.

They claim ambulances have been shot at.

The pro-Kremlin broadcaster RT has aerial footage of what it claims are “militants” being evacuated from Aleppo to Idlib.

The situation in eastern Aleppo remains unclear.

The International Committee of the Red Cross [ICRC] will help with transport injured rebels out eastern Aleppo, Russia’s defence ministry said, according to Interfax.

The ICRC says the evacuation plan is still on hold.

Summary

We’re beginning live coverage of the latest from Aleppo as preparations are underway to evacuate civilians from the east of the city.

Kareem Shaheen summarises the latest developments.

These are the main points:

  • Under the terms of the deal a ceasefire went into effect at 2.30am (00.30GMT) Aleppo time. Noureddine al-Zinki, one of the armed opposition groups in Aleppo, said the deal would also allow the evacuation of wounded people in Fua and Kefraya, two Shia villages in Idlib province that are besieged by rebels.
  • Civilians and the wounded in east Aleppo were expected to begin evacuating from the city at 6am. But there were mixed reports about whether it has started amid reports of gunfire. The Syrian Civil Defense team that its volunteers had been shot at. And the BBC reported that evacuation ambulances had been sent back.
  • Reuters said the evacuation had begun, citing a Syrian official source and the military news service of Damascus ally Hezbollah. But the International Committee of the Red Cross, which has 100 volunteers and 10 ambulances ready, said the evacuation was still on hold.
  • Sources in east Aleppo said shelling in the city had stopped at midnight local time. The new ceasefire agreement came a day after a previous evacuation deal appeared to unravel in the face of Iranian opposition.
  • The Russian president, Vladimir Putin, and his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, issued a joint statement on Wednesday night urging an end to the ceasefire violations and “reaffirmed their commitment to start the evacuation of civilians and the opposition through safe corridors as soon as possible”.
  • The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo would mean the opposition would cede the city, the last significant urban stronghold where it maintained an active presence. Civilians left in the opposition districts have been posting farewell messages on social media as the Iranian-backed militias and forces loyal to Assad rampaged through newly reclaimed neighbourhoods in what the UN described as a “meltdown of humanity”.
  • The UN reported on Tuesday that the Iranian-backed militias, including the Iraqi Harakat al-Nujaba, had carried out at least 82 “extrajudicial killings”, including of women and children who were living in opposition-controlled areas. Reports of detentions and forced recruitment into the Syrian army have also proliferated in recent days as the regime has advanced through former rebel territory.

Updated

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