The UN has called for urgent attention toward the evacuation of trapped resident at Aleppo, thousands of people are expected to be evacuated from what remained of the smashed rebel enclaves in the Syrian city of Aleppo on Monday, the U.N. Security Council called for international monitors to keep watch over the escape routes.
Exist routes from Aleppo have been blocked by incessant fighting and disputes between rival factions. Last week a Russia and Turkey brokered deal will allow several trapped resident to leave the area, as part of the deal, they are to dispatch convoys to take away civilians and rebels fighters.
Some camp of the conflict considers this the plan as a surrender of Aleppo by forces opposing Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in the country’s tragic conflict that has raged since 2011. For Assad’s government and its allies, including Russia, it marked a major victory to reclaim full control of Syria’s most important northern city.
“The evacuation of these orphans, along with thousands of other children from east Aleppo in the past days is a glimmer of hope amid a grim reality for the children of Syria. Their safe departure is a testimony to the relentless efforts of humanitarians on the ground, working around the clock for children and their families,” Unicef’s regional director, Geert Cappelaere, in a statement.
As an addendum to the Aleppo evacuation deal, 10 buses carried civilians away from two Shiite villages long besieged by rebels — Fouaa and Kefraya — on Monday morning, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the pan-Arab Mayadeen television station.
At the United Nations, the 15-member Security Council voted unanimously for all sides in Aleppo to permit U.N. officials and others to monitor the evacuations. France — which drafted the text, along with Russia — has warned of possible “mass atrocities” by Syrian forces and allied pro-government militias as they assume control of all of the rebel enclave.
Abuses have already been reported, including house-to-house executions, and the holding-up of a bus packed with evacuees Friday during which eyewitnesses say some men were stripped, robbed and even killed.
The Syrian government and its Iranian and Russian allies have overseen what it describes as reconciliation deals for rebel fighters across the country, ending in the withdrawal of armed militants, usually to the northwestern province of Idlib. This has often been preceded by a combination of bombardment and crippling sieges to force the area’s surrender.