At least 3,000 civilians were evacuated from east Aleppo under a deal allowing Syria’s regime to take full control of the city after years of fighting, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
A revived agreement on a ceasefire and evacuations were announced on Thursday after the initial plan for fighters and civilians to leave rebel-held parts of the city collapsed, Al Jazeera reported.
The evacuation began with an The evacuation began with a convoy of ambulances and buses crossing into a government-held district in southern Aleppo at 2:30pm local time (1230GMT). A slow-moving convoy of two dozen vehicles snaked out of Al-Amiriyah district and crossed into government-held Ramussa en route to rebel-held territory in the west of Aleppo province, freelance journalist Zouhir AlShimale reported.
Many civilians were in tear and afraid that they would never return to their own land. On the walls and glass panes of the buses the heart-broken Aleppo residents wrote their message of optimism “One day we will return”.
AFP reported the first convoy was led by vehicles from ICRC and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent.
The evacuation process is expected to last at least three days and the injured civilians will be evacuated first.
Due to the foreign interference and Bashar al-Assad’s inhumane ways to curb dissent, the Syrian resistance initially started peacefully by unarmed protests has evolved to a full scale war that killed hundreds of thousands and displaced more than half of countries population.
