Security Council Passes New Aleppo Resolutions. Monitors to Be Deployed

Ingy Sedky, the spokeswoman in Syria for the ICRC, told AFP “We expect today to be the last convoys, the operation will continue all day long and during the night”.

More than 3,000 people evacuating Aleppo, Syria by bus waited in freezing temperatures as a last-minute diplomatic snag stranded them at checkpoints Wednesday, human rights observers said.

The recapture of Aleppo is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s biggest victory so far in the almost six-year-old war, but the fighting is by no means over with large tracts of the country still under the control of insurgent and Islamist groups.

The evacuations are the result of intense negotiations between Russian Federation – the main supporter of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad – and Turkey, which backs some large rebel groups.

Delays in evacuations were reported there – after about 750 people had been able to leave in recent days – but later on Wednesday state television reported that four buses, and two ambulances carrying the wounded, had been able to leave. Hundreds more people have left Foua and Kefraya, villages in Idlib province besieged by the rebels that the government insisted be included in an evacuation agreement.

Aleppo was once Syria’s commercial and industrial hub, but it has been divided since 2012 between government forces in the west and rebels in the east.

The commander of forces allied to Assad said there was still a chance for states with influence over rebel groups to find a way to evacuate civilians safely.

“While separate and distinct from what we are doing, such an worldwide monitoring system should help strengthen the protection of civilians during these or similar operations”.

The evacuations are part of a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran.

On Wednesday, bad weather and poor condition of some cars appeared to have slowed the operation which has already brought out thousands of others since late last week.

Rebels and a government official have said a new deal that was being negotiated on Saturday to complete the evacuation of rebel-held areas of east Aleppo would involve people leaving the two villages and two other besieged towns, Madaya and Zabadani, near the Lebanese border.

The U.N. Security Council unanimously approved the deployment of monitors to Syria, noting that “urgent humanitarian evacuations and assistance are now needed by a large number of Aleppo inhabitants”.

The rebel factions besieging both villages were also preventing the departure of buses from there, the watchdog added.

The Syrian regime and the rebels, and their global backers, mainly Russia, Iran, and Turkey, were negotiating the terms of the new agreement for much of Friday and Saturday with the talks mainly focusing on the fate of the two Shiite villages encircled by the armed opposition.