Syrian authorities have confirmed that the operation to evacuate people from the last rebel areas of Aleppo has started.
Everything is ready for rebels and civilians to start leaving “at any moment,” an army official told the Associated Press on Thursday, amid reports that White Helmets volunteers had been shot at by snipers while preparing to move people, killing at least one person.
The deal appears to still be on, however: Syrian state television showed around 20 buses and 10 ambulances, engines running, waiting at a checkpoint between the government and rebel controlled sides of the city.
Opposition activists shared pictures showing buses that had crossed into the east side of the city which could not be independently confirmed.
Ahmad al-Dbis, a doctor co-ordinating the movement of the sick and wounded, also said that the evacation was underway and people had started to board buses. One hundred volunteers are on standby to help, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said.
A new deal was struck late on Wednesday to evacuate both fighters and civilians from the remaining slivers of rebel territory beginning on Thursday morning. It is unclear how many people are supposed to leave for rebel territory in neighbouring Idlib province.
A previous ceasefire mediated by Turkey and Russia broke down after about 12 hours on Wednesday, and heavy fighting and air strikes resumed.
The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that fighting stopped in the city at around 4 am local time (2 am GMT).
The Russian military's Centre for Reconcilation in Syria said it was preparing for a full rebel withdrawal from Aleppo and that their safety would be guaranteed en route to Idlib province.
The new deal will also see the rebel siege on the loyalist villages of Fouaa and Kfarya in Idlib eased, and aid and evacuations for the starving rebel towns of Madaya and Zabadani, under regime siege.
Regime-organised evacuations from besieged towns has proved an effective strategy for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the past. Recapturing Aleppo will be his biggest victory yet in the almost six-year-long civil war.
