Hundreds leave the city of Aleppo under deal

Aleppo (Syria) - The rebel withdrawal began a month to the day after President Bashar Al Assad's forces launched a new offensive to recapture Aleppo and will hand the regime its biggest victory in more than five years of civil war.

Hundreds of civilians and rebels left Aleppo on Thursday under an evacuation deal that will allow Syria's regime to take full control of the city after years of fighting.
The rebel withdrawal began a month to the day after President Bashar Al Assad's forces launched a new offensive to recapture Aleppo and will hand the regime its biggest victory in more than five years of civil war.
A revived agreement on a ceasefire and the evacuations was announced on Thursday, after an initial plan for civilians and fighters to leave rebel-held parts of east Aleppo collapsed the previous day amid renewed clashes.
The evacuation began with a convoy of ambulances and buses crossing into a government-held district in southern Aleppo around 2:30pm.
A Syrian military source told AFP that 951 evacuees, including 108 wounded, were in the convoy. Most were civilians but about 200 rebel fighters were among them, the source said.
The convoy arrived just over an hour later in opposition territory west of the city, a doctor at the scene said.
"Vehicles carrying the wounded have arrived, and the wounded will be transferred to nearby hospitals for treatment," said Ahmad Al Dbis, who heads a unit of doctors and other volunteers coordinating the evacuation of wounded people.
He spoke to AFP from the transit point near opposition-controlled Khan Al Aassal, about five kilometres from Aleppo city.
The evacuees had spent hours earlier gathering earlier at a staging area in Aleppo's southern Al-Amiriyah district.
An AFP correspondent there saw people piling onto the green buses, filling seats and even sitting on the floor, with some worried that there would not be another chance to evacuate. Many were in tears and some hesitated to board, afraid they would end up in the hands of regime forces.
On the dusty window of one of the buses someone had written "One day we will return".
Each bus carried a member of the Syrian Red Crescent dressed in the organisation's red uniform, riding at the front next to the driver.
Ingy Sedky, the International Committee of the Red Cross's spokeswoman in Syria, said the first convoy included 13 ambulances and 20 buses carrying civilians. Once the first convoy arrives safely "it will return and collect more people for a second journey and continue like that. We will go today for as long as conditions allow," she said.
Syrian state television reported that at least 4,000 rebels and their families would be evacuated under the plan.
It said preparations were underway for a second convoy to leave rebel-held territory.
A first evacuation expected to take place on Wednesday morning fell apart, with artillery exchanges and resumed air strikes rocking the city until the early hours of Thursday.
But the agreement, brokered by Syrian regime ally Moscow and opposition supporter Ankara, was revived following fresh talks. The defence ministry in Moscow said that Syrian authorities had guaranteed the safety of the rebels leaving the city.
The head of the UN-backed humanitarian taskforce for Syria, Jan Egeland, told reporters in Geneva that "most" of those evacuated from Aleppo would head to opposition stronghold Idlib, in Syria's northwest.
"Russians and others assure us that there will be a pause in the fighting when we assist the evacuation," Egeland said. The evacuation was going ahead despite reports earlier on Thursday of pro-regime forces firing on an ambulance transporting the injured to Al Amiriyah, wounding three people including a member of the White Helmets civil defence organisation.
On Wednesday, cold and hungry civilians had gathered for the initial planned evacuation but were instead sent running through the streets searching for cover as fighting resumed.

• MENA