Beirut: A tentative deal to evacuate the last rebel-held zones in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo was reached Tuesday after reports of widespread civilian deaths spurred diplomatic efforts, a Russian envoy and rebel commanders said.
Details of the deal remained unclear, however. Among the questions: whether the possible escape routes would be open to civilians, where those evacuated would be taken, and what could face rebel fighters choosing to leave.
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Thousands of civilians flee Aleppo
Evacuating the rebel-held part of eastern Aleppo as the Syrian army and its allies take control of large areas in the city.
A Western diplomat familiar with the outlines of the deal said it was brokered by Turkey and Russia and that it appeared to give people still trapped by the fighting an opportunity to leave. But he said there is widespread scepticism among the rebels' Western allies that the agreement would be carried out.
"We'll believe it when we see it," he said. "Russia has now several times now put out a proposal, then backed away from it, not made good on it. This might be real … but right now we see nothing to indicate good faith or actual intent on the part of Russia."
Late Tuesday, Russia announced that the government was in full control of all of Aleppo, though that could not be independently confirmed. But in east Aleppo, residents said they were awaiting the first buses to take them away.
The deal would end the intense battles and bloodshed that have wracked Aleppo. Among the dead are at least 82 civilians killed by Syrian soldiers and allied Shiite militias from Iraq and backed by Iran, according to UN reports.
It would also signal an end for rebel fighters clinging to their last footholds in the strategic city after being pushed back by overwhelming firepower.
After months trapped in one of the deepest humanitarian crises of Syria's 5 1/2-year war, an aid worker, Bakry al-Obed, described overwhelming relief at the news.
![Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen marching walk inside the destroyed Grand Umayyad mosque in the old city of Aleppo.](/web/20161214230427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/j/l/a/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtaia2.png/1481664944845.jpg)
"I am so relieved, I feel like the world has been handed to me on a platter. You do not understand the kind of fear we have been living in, and now it's over," he said.
When rebel forces seized Aleppo's eastern districts in 2012, they hoped the area would become the seat of a new rebel government that would buttress their challenge to Syrian President Bashar Assad in the capital, Damascus. Its loss is likely to deal a crushing blow from which the armed groups probably would not be able to recover.
![A graveyard in east Aleppo.](/web/20161214230427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/j/l/b/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtaia2.png/1481722067263.jpg)
It would usher the war into a reckoning phase, with an array of rebel forces boxed together in a single province.
"An agreement has been reached" for an evacuation, said Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour al-Din al-Zinki rebel brigade, one of the groups that has joined the war against the Assad government, whose forces gained a critical edge last year when ally Russia deployed its warplanes to Syria.
![Syrians displaced with their families from eastern Aleppo gather at a collective shelter in Jibreen south of Aleppo on ...](/web/20161214230427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/9/y/g/6/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtaia2.png/1481679603903.jpg)
Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, said the first rebels could be leaving "within hours," but no additional details were given.
A Syrian military source told Reuters the evacuation of fighters would start at 5am local time on Wednesday. The source said fighters' families would also leave, but did not mention other civilian evacuations.
![Syrian troops and pro-government gunmen marching through the streets of east Aleppo on Tuesday.](/web/20161214230427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/j/l/c/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtaia2.png/1481668840558.jpg)
Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.
The once-flourishing economic centre with its renowned ancient sites has been pulverised during the war which has killed hundreds of thousands of people, created the world's worst refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.
![Syrians who were displaced with their families from eastern Aleppo gather at the collective shelter, in the village of ...](/web/20161214230427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/a/j/3/v/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtaia2.png/1481664944845.jpg)
In Geneva, the United Nations said government loyalists have executed dozens of people in their sweep through remaining opposition-held districts where rebels were battling for survival after being pushed into a final scrap of territory.
"We appear to be witnessing nothing less than ... a total uncompromising military victory," UN Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon told the UN Security Council on Tuesday.
![A Syrian army soldier places a Syrian national flag during a battle with rebel fighters at the Ramouseh front line, east ...](/web/20161214230427im_/http://www.smh.com.au/content/dam/images/g/t/8/m/z/n/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gtaia2.png/1481664944845.jpg)
Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN human rights agency, said his office received reports that Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi militia have killed at least 82 civilians, entering homes and killing people "on the spot."
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes," said Colville. "There could be many more."
Others were reportedly shot as they fled. A list of names provided to the United Nations included 11 women and 13 children, he said.
"They have gone from siege to slaughter," British UN Ambassador Matthew Rycroft said. "Aleppo will join the ranks of those events in world history that define modern evil, that stain our conscience decades later - Halabja, Rwanda, Srebrenica and now Aleppo," said US ambassador Samantha Power.
The reports of summary executions of civilians and apparent house-by-house rampages reflected the chaos gripping Aleppo as forces supporting Assad have pushed rebels into a patch of territory covering less than three square miles.
Former British foreign secretary David Miliband, now head of the aid group International Rescue Committee, said the area has become "a bloody graveyard for thousands of innocent people and for the death of respect for international law and the rules of war."
Jens Laerke, the UN humanitarian spokesman, described "a complete meltdown of humanity in Aleppo," citing reports from a Syrian volunteer rescue group known as the White Helmets.
"It's hell," he added.
International aid agencies urged government forces Tuesday to refrain from acts of revenge against people who either escape rebel-held areas or are captured there.
"Thousands of civilians' lives are in danger as front lines close in around them," said a statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross. "A deepening humanitarian catastrophe and further loss of life can be averted only if the basic rules of warfare - and of humanity - are applied."
Almost a month after pro-Assad troops launched a final push to take back the city, the rebels' collapse had come swiftly. Their final districts were falling like dominoes, sparking jubilation in the streets of some government-held areas.
Rebel forces have regularly shelled west Aleppo, and the presence of an al-Qaida-linked group in Syria's armed rebellion has led many government supporters to view all militants as terrorists.
The ongoing Syrian conflict represents one of the worst humanitarian disasters the world has seen in years, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop says.
Ms Bishop said Australia has been calling for a ceasefire and for humanitarian corridors to be set up so civilians can leave and aid get through.
The conflict has been beset with claims and counter-claims, which she witnessed first hand during international meetings.
"Russia and the United States must find a way forward to stop the killing and to allow humanitarian relief to be provided to the suffering people of Aleppo," she told ABC radio on Wednesday.
The minister again reiterated the need for a political solution: "To say that (President) Assad must go, I'm afraid that moment passed a long time ago."
A tide of refugees
France said Tuesday that it has requested an emergency meeting of the UN Security Council to urgently address the crisis. Francois Delattre, the French ambassador, said the session would discuss measures to confront "the worst humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century unfolding before our eyes."
Thousands of people have been killed in the four-year-long battle for the city, once a key economic hub. Throughout much of the rebel-held east, the streets have been shattered beyond recognition. The area's health system has also been systematically attacked.
In recent weeks, more than 100,000 people have fled fighting in what remains of the rebel enclave, pouring into government- and Kurdish-controlled areas in recent weeks, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group.
Syrian state television has showed thousands of people streaming into the government-held part of the city clutching possessions and bags.
Fighting appeared to have slowed Tuesday as rain and thunderstorms made it difficult for warplanes to fly.
In a video posted to the livestreaming site Periscope, Abdulkafi al-Hamdo, an English teacher, addressed viewers from an empty street. "Now it is raining. Bombs a little bit calmer," he said. "We wanted freedom. We didn't want anything else but freedom. You know, this world doesn't like freedom, it seems."
One man pushed a bicycle loaded with bags, another family pulled a cart on which sat an elderly woman. Another man carried on his back a small girl wearing a pink hat.
At the same time, a correspondent from a pro-Damascus television station spoke to camera from a part of Aleppo held by the government, standing in a tidy street with flowing traffic.
In some recaptured areas, people were returning to their shattered homes. A woman in her sixties, who identified herself as Umm Ali, or "Ali's mother", said that she, her husband and her disabled daughter had no water.
They were looking after the orphaned children of another daughter killed in the bombing, she said, and were reduced to putting pots and pans in the street to collect rainwater.
Thousands more were still trapped in the rebel-held areas, refusing to leave because they fear for their safety at the hands of government troops, said Zouhir al-Shimale, an activist who is still living under rebel control.
"We're in a very tiny area, and there are so many families stuck here," he said. "Either they can't leave because they are wanted by the government or they don't want to leave because this is their home."
Friends who escaped to the east have told him that men who leave are being separated from the others who are fleeing and taken to serve in the depleted Syrian army, one of the reasons he is not leaving the enclave.
In Berlin, French President Francois Hollande repeated Western appeals for Russia to help create a humanitarian aid for civilians trapped in Aleppo.
Hollande, after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel, said Aleppo's "humanitarian situation . . . is unacceptable."
The Washington Post, Reuters