Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Smoke is seen rising in this rebel-held area on Wednesday

A deal to evacuate rebel fighters and civilians from eastern Aleppo has stalled, with heavy shelling reported in the Syrian city.

A ceasefire was declared in Aleppo on Tuesday and buses brought in to ferry people out of the devastated enclave.

But fighting resumed on Wednesday. Syrian activists also say air strikes over rebel-held territory have resumed.

The breakdown of the deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey, is being attributed to demands from the government side.

It is said to be seeking the evacuation of injured fighters and civilians from nearby towns encircled by opposition forces.

The latest on the ground

Eastern Aleppo has been held by the rebels since 2012. But they have been squeezed into ever-smaller areas in recent months by a major government offensive, backed by Russian air power.

In recent days government troops have made sweeping gains. Russia's military said on Wednesday that rebels were confined to only 2.5sq km of the city.

Image copyright AFP Image caption Buses were brought in for evacuations but have not been used

Late on Tuesday, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told an emergency session of the UN Security Council that "military actions in eastern Aleppo are over".

Under the evacuation deal, civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo were to be allowed to go to rebel-held areas in northern Syria.

Evacuations had been due to start at 05:00 (03:00 GMT), but did not go ahead. Fresh shelling was reported several hours later.

"The clashes are violent and bombardment is very heavy... it seems as though everything (the ceasefire) is finished," Rami Abdulrahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group, said.

The SOHR also said aircraft had resumed bombing in rebel-held areas.

Russia - Syria's ally - said the Syrian army resumed firing after the rebels broke the truce. Syrian TV reported rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the city and said at least six people had been killed.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Syrian forces of breaking the ceasefire deal and called the situation in Aleppo "very fragile". He said civilians had to be allowed to leave.

The residents still under siege

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Bombs interrupt interview as Zouhir Alshimale, a journalist in east Aleppo, says there is nowhere to go that is safe

Residents of besieged eastern Aleppo have faced weeks of bombardment and chronic food and fuel shortages. Medical facilities in the city have largely been reduced to rubble.

AFP news agency reported that before the fighting had resumed, crowds of civilians, holding belongings, had gathered in the streets to await evacuation.

Some information continues to emerge from besieged areas:

Ibrahim Abu-Laith, a spokesman for the White Helmets volunteer rescue group, said more than 40 people were injured in eastern Aleppo

One resident, Zohair, told the BBC there was total chaos. "We don't know how many casualties there are and if there is anyone to help them"

"Bombing is ongoing, no one can move," one activist, Mohammad al-Khatib told AFP. "The wounded and dead are lying in the street. No one dares to try and retrieve the bodies"

Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "Here comes the barrel bomb" - trapped resident Joud al-Khatib in Aleppo

Residents say they fear reprisals from government forces or being forcibly conscripted. There have also been reports of atrocities.

On Tuesday the UN said it had received reliable evidence of summary executions taking place, saying that in four areas 82 civilians were killed by pro-government forces. It said that many more may have died.

Syria's government and Russia said the allegations were untrue.

Meanwhile, the BBC has learned that Western forces are using satellites and unmanned aircraft to gather evidence of possible war crimes in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria.

How many people are in eastern Aleppo?

It is not clear exactly how many people remain in besieged areas. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura put the figure at about 50,000.

He said there were approximately 1,500 rebel fighters, about 30% of whom were from the jihadist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front.

Other local sources say there could be as many as 100,000 people, many of them arriving from areas recently taken by the government.

High stakes - by Sebastian Usher, BBC Middle East analyst

The deal to evacuate rebel fighters and civilians out of eastern Aleppo is only the latest and most complex of such arrangements. It is also the one with the highest stakes.

Rebel-held towns in a ring around Damascus have one by one ceded in similar ways.

The choreography often follows the same pattern, with buses waiting hours or days at evacuation points as final guarantees on both sides are hammered out. Safe passage to the rebel-held province of Idlib has also been part of such deals.

More rarely, the agreements have involved reciprocal evacuations from government areas encircled by rebels. That now seems to have been made part of this deal, complicating it further.

The violence has resumed, but that does not mean that the deal is off. The rebels have reached a point of no return. Many more lives may be lost in the meantime, but it is all but certain that the fighters will leave Aleppo. </s> BEIRUT -- Opposition fighters fired mortars Friday at a corridor set aside for rebels and residents to leave besieged eastern Aleppo, Russian and Syrian officials said, breaking a "humanitarian pause" by Russia and wounding two Russian soldiers and a Syrian journalist.

For most of the 10-hour halt in fighting, which was unilaterally announced by Russia, no one had approached the corridors, and webcam video from the Russian Defense Ministry showed no activity. There was no U.N. monitoring of the exit routes.

During similar, previous halts in fighting, rebels and civilians in eastern Aleppo also mostly stayed put, saying international monitors were not involved and there were no guarantees of security for those who left. Some battle-hardened residents believe that the government would arrest anyone who comes out through the corridors.

About four hours before the pause expired, Syrian state media said seven mortar shells from the rebel-held territory hit one of the corridors in the northern part of the city.

The two Russians were slightly wounded during the shelling, and they were evacuated, but their lives were not in danger, the Russian Defense Ministry said. A correspondent for a pro-government broadcaster also was wounded by shrapnel, Syrian state TV said.

Syria's government largely abided by the halt. Russia, a staunch ally, has been supporting Syria's fight against the rebels with a campaign of airstrikes as recently as September and October.

The "humanitarian pause" by Russia raised speculation that a major offensive might begin after its expiration at 7 p.m. in Aleppo. There were no immediate reports of any new airstrikes there.

U.N. officials in Geneva would not comment directly on the Russian initiative but reiterated that security conditions were not adequate for bringing aid into eastern Aleppo. The U.N. stepped up calls for a nationwide truce in the civil war, not just in the northern city.

Asked whether the Russian plan offered a window of opportunity for aid convoys, spokesman Jens Laerke of the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs told reporters: "I'm trying my best not to comment on the actual initiative, but to state what the situation is."

Jessy Chahine, a spokesman for U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura, added that anything that helps save lives "is more than welcome."

But she added that de Mistura was against the evacuation of civilians "unless it is voluntary."

Aleppo, once Syria's largest city and its pre-war commercial hub, has become one of the biggest theaters of the civil war, where eastern districts have been controlled by rebels opposed to President Bashar Assad and western areas have been controlled by the government. The eastern part has been besieged by pro-government forces since July, and the U.N. estimates that 275,000 people are trapped there.

The previous halt faltered because the Syrian government and Russia refused to allow humanitarian aid into blockaded areas. This time, the U.N. was not part of the announcement or the operation of the corridors.

Meanwhile, a rebel offensive began last week on the government-held areas, home to more than 1 million people, including some displaced from the rebel side. A volley of missiles killed 12 civilians Thursday, state media said.

Overnight, the Syrian military dropped leaflets on the eastern side urging residents and rebels to leave during the pause in fighting, and one posted online by activists gave instructions on how to leave safely, with hands raised. Residents also reported getting text messages urging them to get out.

There has been no official word from Russia on what will happen after the halt in hostilities expires. Similar pauses ended last month with no resumption of airstrikes, which Russia said it had halted in eastern Aleppo. Some residents later reported bombardment on the front line with western districts.

On Thursday, a Russian lawmaker told the Interfax news agency that a "purge" of eastern Aleppo would begin if the pause produced no results. President Vladimir Putin urged opposition fighters to leave via the corridors.

Russia's aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is in the Mediterranean and headed for the Syrian coast. Its presence suggests that Russia may be intending to escalate its assault on the rebels.

A rebel spokesman, Yasser al-Youssef of the Nour el-Din el-Zinki group, said opposition fighters are anticipating a "violent air campaign" in eastern Aleppo.

"The Russians are exerting more pressure on the rebellious people of Aleppo to get them out of the city," al-Youssef said. "This will not happen. Absolutely."

Syrian state TV showed buses parked in one of the corridors waiting for anyone leaving eastern Aleppo. Police and an Islamic cleric also were at the crossing.

No one had used the corridors by midday, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, and a volunteer of the Syrea Civil Defense group in Aleppo, Ibrahim al-Haj, added that no had left in the early afternoon.

Information for this article was contributed by Albert Aji, Vladimir Isachenkov and Jamey Keaten of The Associated Press. </s> Thousands of people fled the front lines of fighting in Aleppo on Tuesday as the Syrian military hammered the final pocket of rebel resistance and Russia rejected an immediate ceasefire.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity” with civilians being shot dead.

The U.N. human rights office said it had reports of abuses, including that the army and allied Iraqi militiamen summarily killed at least 82 civilians in captured districts of the city, once a flourishing economic center with renowned ancient sites.

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“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

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.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defenses collapsed, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

The spokesman for the civil defense force in the former rebel area of Aleppo said rebels now controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defense has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies had taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic,” but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents. Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said. </s> BEIRUT – Russia said the Syrian army was suspending combat operations in Aleppo late Thursday to allow for the evacuation of civilians from besieged rebel-held neighborhoods, but residents and fighters reported no let-up in the bombing and shelling campaign on the opposition’s ever-shrinking enclave.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, speaking in Germany after talks with U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry, said military experts and diplomats would meet Saturday in Geneva to work out details of the rebels’ exit from Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods, along with civilians who were willing to leave the city.

Lavrov said the Syrian army suspended combat action late Thursday to allow some 8,000 civilians to leave the city in a convoy spreading across a three-mile route. However, opposition activists said there was no halt to the government offensive.

“Battles are intense,” said a message from a rebel operation room shared with The Associated Press. Other residents reported warplanes firing from machine guns at rebel positions and artillery shells falling in the remaining rebel-controlled districts.

In Washington, State Department spokeswoman Elizabeth Trudeau said the U.S. was focused on de-escalating the violence in Aleppo to allow aid into the city and enable people wishing to stay in their homes to do so.

She said Kerry and Lavrov continued talks on Thursday with the goal of securing a cease-fire and the “safe departure of those who wish to leave the city.” She said details of Saturday’s U.S.-Russian technical discussions in Geneva were still being worked out.

Earlier, in Geneva, U.N. special adviser Jan Egeland said efforts to evacuate hundreds of wounded people from eastern Aleppo had stalled following a deadly attack this week on a Russian military hospital in government-controlled western Aleppo that left two Russian nurses dead and a doctor seriously wounded.

“It is with bitterness and frustration that we have to report that we have not been able even to evacuate the wounded,” Egeland said. “The member states that are supposed to help us get access to civilians in the cross-fire are poles apart in how they regard what is happening in Syria.”

He said Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government had authorized U.N.-organized aid shipments into eastern Aleppo for the first time. However, he provided no details about how the aid might get in or where it would go, and past agreements have fallen through before any aid could be delivered.

The rebel defenses have buckled amid the wide-ranging government offensive, which opened a number of fronts at once and was preceded by an intensive aerial campaign. More than three-quarters of the rebel sector has now fallen, including the symbolically important ancient Aleppo quarters. More than 30,000 of the estimated 275,000 residents of the besieged eastern enclave have fled to western Aleppo.

In comments published Thursday in the state-owned al-Watan newspaper, Assad said he would no longer consider truce offers, adding that such proposals, particularly by the Americans, often come when the rebels are in a “difficult spot.”

He said that while a victory by Syrian government forces in the battle for Aleppo would be a “big gain,” it will not end the country’s civil war.

“Liberating Aleppo from the terrorists deals a blow to the whole foundation of this project,” he said. But he added, “to be realistic, it doesn’t mean the end of the war.”

On Thursday, opposition activists reported intensive bombing in the al-Sukkari and Kallaseh neighborhoods still under rebel control.

Al-Sukkari is in the southern part of eastern Aleppo, an area that has become home to the majority of the displaced civilians who stayed behind; Kallaseh is near the Old City. Footage by the Syrian military showed intensive shelling of Bustan al-Qasr, a frontline neighborhood that links the rebel-held eastern and government-controlled western parts of the divided city.

The International Committee for the Red Cross said that it had evacuated 148 disabled civilians and others in need of urgent care from a facility in Aleppo’s Old City after fighting calmed down there.

The evacuation, undertaken jointly with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, was completed late Wednesday, the Red Cross said in a statement. The people had been trapped in a facility that was originally a home for the elderly and included mentally and physically disabled patients, as well as injured civilians who had sought refuge there.

“They were forgotten,” said Pawel Krzysiek, the agency’s communication coordinator in Damascus. The evacuees were taken to a hospital and shelters in the western, government-held part of Aleppo.

Isachenkov reported from Moscow. Associated Press writers Nataliya Vasilyeva in Moscow, Jamey Keaten in Geneva and Bradley Klapper in Washington contributed to this report. </s> A ceasefire has been reached between Moscow and Syrian rebels allowing the evacuation of civilians and fighters from eastern Aleppo, the Russian ambassador to the UN has said.

The amabassador informed the international community on Tuesday evening that the Syrian-led "counter-terrorism operation" in eastern Aleppo will end in a few hours.

The alleged agreemnet will effectively cede the remainder of Syria's largest city to government troops after months of a deadly siege.

The ceasefire comes after the UN reported possible mass killings by government troops as they closed in on the rebels’ last enclave in the city.

Osama Abu Zayd, a Turkey-based legal advisor for an umbrella group of rebel factions known as the Free Syrian Army, said the ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday evening and that the first batch will begin evacuating within hours.

Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, confirmed the ceasefire and said the goal is to evacuate civilians and rebels from besieged areas.

It was not immediately clear whether the hostilities had ceased in Aleppo. The opposition-run Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said shelling was continuing.

World leaders and aid agencies issued dramatic appeals on behalf of trapped residents earlier Tuesday, and the UN human rights office said that pro-government forces reportedly killed 82 civilians "on the spot" as they closed in on remaining rebel districts.

That and other reports of mass killings, which could not be independently confirmed, reinforce fears of atrocities in eastern Aleppo in the final hours of the battle for the city - which has been split between rebel and government control since 2012.

Several residents and opposition activists said that government forces carried out summary killings of rebels in the streets in neighbourhoods captured on Monday, but the Syrian military flatly denied the claims, saying such allegations were "a desperate attempt" to try gain international sympathy. </s> Aleppo: Ceasefire between Russian and Syrian forces ends; civilians, rebels ignore opportunity to leave

Updated

A 10-hour ceasefire by Russian and Syrian government forces in Aleppo has come to an end, but neither the Syrian rebels nor civilians have shown signs of leaving the opposition-held city.

Key points: Syrian Government, Russian allies to resume air strikes after 10-hour repreive

Rebels and residents ignore opportunity to leave besieged east

Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says no sign of resumed bombing yet

The Government sent ambulances and buses to take people out of the besieged zone as it has done at other times during the pause, but there was still no sign that anybody would leave.

Just hours before the end of the ceasefire loomed, residents contacted by Reuters seemed resigned to the resumption in bombing, which killed hundreds of people in late September and early October.

"Nothing can be done. Nobody can stop the planes," said Bebars Mishal, an official with the White Helmets civil defence volunteer group in eastern Aleppo, which digs victims out of the rubble and runs an ambulance service.

He said there was no way for rescue workers or medical staff to prepare in advance of the expected resumption of attacks.

"All we can do is take precautions and be ready 24 hours a day," Mr Mishal said.

Earlier, the Government and its Russian allies had abandoned the ceasefire to launch their assault on the biggest urban area in opposition hands.

The rebels' own shelling of residential parts of Government-held western Aleppo killed dozens in the past week as insurgent groups staged a counter-attack from outside the city aimed at breaking the siege on areas they control.

Moscow and Damascus said their pause in bombing the city was due to end at 7:00pm local time (3:00am Saturday AEST), accusing rebels of having used the pause to reinforce and launch attacks on government-held areas.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said that there was no sign yet of resumed aerial bombardment of central parts of the city.

The Government and its Russian allies say they target only militants, and that fighters are to blame for civilian casualties by operating in civilian areas.

Western countries say the bombing has deliberately targeted hospitals, aid workers and bakeries and Washington has accused Moscow of "war crimes". Rebels say the aim is to drive out civilians, some 275,000 of whom remain in the besieged zone.

"They call it a ceasefire. The regime hasn't let us hear the end of it," said Modar Shekho, a nurse in rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

"As usual, when it ends they will let the bombardment loose. We've gotten used to this."

Aleppo has become the focal point of fighting in Syria's war, now in its sixth year, pitting President Bashar al-Assad and his allies against Sunni rebel groups including some supported by Turkey, Gulf Arab monarchies and the United States.

Reuters

Topics: unrest-conflict-and-war, terrorism, world-politics, syrian-arab-republic

First posted </s> (CNN) Aleppo residents will be allowed to leave on Thursday under a new ceasefire agreement reached overnight, a rebel group said.

According to Ahmad Qurah Ali, spokesman for the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, the deal was reached late Wednesday and will permit injured people to be evacuated beginning in the morning.

The original ceasefire brokered Tuesday collapsed less than a day after it began.

Deaths were reported on both sides Wednesday, while some 50,000 civilians are thought to remain inside the small pocket of eastern Aleppo still under rebel control.

The brief ceasefire, which Turkey and Russia helped broker, aimed to begin evacuating rebels and civilians from the city Wednesday morning, but that didn't happen.

Turkey and activists on the ground accused the Syrian regime and other forces of heavy shelling and bombardment as world leaders demanded a new ceasefire deal.

Latest developments

Diplomats from Turkey, Russia and Iran will meet December 27 in Moscow to discuss the situation in Aleppo

UN human rights chief says resumed bombardment in Aleppo likely a war crime

US ambassador to United Nations says to other members: "You have a responsibility to denounce these atrocities"

Doctors in the city are "terrified and losing hope," Doctors Without Borders says

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Syrian regime of breaking ceasefire

Planned evacuations of civilians at dawn Wednesday did not happen

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to congratulate him, state media say

Ceasefire a 'false hope'

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said he was appalled by the ceasefire agreement's swift collapse.

"While the reasons for the breakdown in the ceasefire are disputed, the resumption of extremely heavy bombardment by the Syrian government forces and their allies on an area packed with civilians is almost certainly a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes," he said in a statement Wednesday.

Speaking to CNN from Aleppo Wednesday night, ITV correspondent Dan Rivers described what he said was a "constant percussion of artillery tank-fire."

"We've seen rockets streaking behind us," he said.

Aref Al-Aref, a medic inside the zone, spoke to CNN over the phone Wednesday as the sounds of two explosions rang in the background.

"People were hopeful that they were leaving this hell. But it was a false hope," he said.

"We are now worried about leaving the house. If the regime decides to launch an air raid, a massacre will take place right away. The area we are left in is too small."

Syrians fleeing the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood on Tuesday.

An Aleppo resident who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity gave a harrowing account of the scene at a hospital in a rebel-controlled part of eastern Aleppo.

"I thought I walked into a slaughterhouse. There were dead bodies everywhere," the resident said. "There were many, many, wounded people. The doctors are not able to cope with the load anymore. They ran out of plasma and other medical supplies."

In rebel-held areas, food and supplies are running out, the resident said. "People are living on the very last remaining sacks of baking flour they have. They are using wood from furniture they take from the house to use for cooking. There is no more cooking gas."

The Syrian regime is on the brink of taking the whole city of Aleppo, having made sweeping gains in just over two weeks since its forces, backed by airstrikes, entered the enclave by ground.

As the situation in Aleppo changes rapidly, CNN will update the map with information from sources on the ground.

Rebel groups held eastern Aleppo for more than four years after the Arab Spring uprising, and a regime siege on the area had essentially cut it off from the outside world, sparking a humanitarian crisis there.

If the regime does take control of the key city, it would mark a turning point in the brutal five-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

JUST WATCHED Why is Aleppo so important in Syria? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Why is Aleppo so important in Syria? 01:28

'Why are you silent?'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused the regime of breaking the truce.

"Turkey will not leave the people of Aleppo alone," he said, according to state-run news agency Anadolu.

"I call all parties and international society to respect the ceasefire, to support it. A humanitarian corridor should be open and innocent people should be able to leave with no obstacle and sabotage. People of Eastern Aleppo should leave safe and sound."

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the ceasefire agreement on Wednesday, underscoring that it should be applied, violations should be avoided and the promised evacuations should occur, Turkey's official Anadolou news agency reported.

The top diplomats of Turkey, Russia and Iran are set to meet on December 27 in Moscow to discuss the situation in Aleppo, Turkey's official news agency Anadolu reported Wednesday, citing Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. No further details were reported regarding the meeting or the agenda.

But diplomatic efforts so far have seemed to have little impact on the streets of Aleppo, where the situation Wednesday appeared increasingly grim.

A missile just fell on the roof of my building

Now the people who were waiting the buses have to run back for their lives again find shelter pic.twitter.com/WGGfc1BEdX — salah ashkar (@SalahAshkar) December 14, 2016

Aleppo Media Center activist Salah Ashkar told CNN earlier that shelling was ongoing in his neighborhood, and posted a video to Twitter showing walls in his building damaged and rubble all over the rooftop.

"A missile just fell on the roof of my building," he said in the video. "Now the people who were waiting (for) the buses have to run back for their lives again (to) find shelter."

Fatemah Alabed, the mother of a 7-year-old girl whose tweets from Aleppo have captured the world's attention, said intense bombing was taking place, asking: "Why are you silent? Why?"

Dear world, there's intense bombing right now. Why are you silent? Why? Why? Why? Fear is killing me & my kids. - Fatemah #Aleppo — Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) December 14, 2016

Alabed also tweeted directly to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, saying they had hope Tuesday, "but what's happening now? Please help us now. No more time left."

Cavusoglu responded, saying "Keep your hope my sister. Turkey hears your call."

Keep your hope my sister. Turkey hears your call. We work hard to end the nightmare you and many children in Syria are going through. https://t.co/MMwe0QPteP — Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (@MevlutCavusoglu) December 14, 2016

In Paris, the Eiffel Tower went dark Wednesday night as a gesture of solidarity with the people of Aleppo.

No evacuations Wednesday

As government forces were on the brink of taking all of Aleppo, a ceasefire originally was announced late Tuesday that was to see government troops, regime-aligned militia and rebel forces stand down on Wednesday.

JUST WATCHED Goodbye messages from Aleppo Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Goodbye messages from Aleppo 01:31

The first group of evacuees scheduled to leave was supposed to consist of 70 injured people and family members -- a total of 150 people. Buses waited to carry them out, but the ceasefire crumbled.

Syrian residents fleeing eastern Aleppo in fear on December 7.

An International Committee of the Red Cross official in Aleppo told CNN the organization "is ready to help the parties to this agreement in overseeing the evacuation of civilians."

He added that they are "on standby" in case a request is made to support in an evacuation.

World Vision has said it is ready in Syria and can help as many as 100,000 displaced people. </s> “What is happening today is the writing of a history written by every Syrian citizen.” 



Over 3000 people have been evacuated in buses and ambulances from the rebel-held war-torn city of Aleppo in Syria following a ceasefire deal that will end almost six years of fighting in the city and marks a major victory for Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad.

The evacuation is a result of the desperate pleas from Aleppo residents and reports of the abuse and atrocities they have been suffering, as well as days of intense bombing of houses and apartment buildings, killing so many that it was impossible to determine the death toll.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), who is overseeing the evacuation, says the full evacuation of civilians and rebels is likely to take several days. The head of the ICRC painted a devastating picture of the situation before the evacuation.

“A crane was used to remove some of the debris from the street so the ambulances and buses could get through. There were burnt cars. Smoke rising from nearby buildings. There was a lot of fear and uncertainty,” she explained.

“When we arrived, the scene was heart-breaking. People are faced with impossible choices. You see their eyes filled with sadness.”

While people are happy to be leaving the city and be safe, there is a lot of sadness around leaving their homes behind. An journalist reported seeing the words “one day we will return” written on the dusty window of one of the evacuation buses.

United Nations special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, said around 50,000 people remain in Aleppo, and 10,000 of those will be evacuated to the nearby province of Idlib, and the rest will be moved to other government-held districts.

In a video message, President Assad said history was being made.

“What is happening today is the writing of a history written by every Syrian citizen. The writing did not start today, it started six years ago when the crisis and war started against Syria.”

The ceasefire comes after a week of assaults from the Syrian government and its ally, Russia. Journalist Zouhir Al Shimale, who is in east Aleppo, said hundreds of families gathered at the departure point for the buses.

“Civilians are given the choice to stay or leave. If they stay, they’ll be under regime control. Most of the people want to go because they are afraid of potential massacres by the regime,” Shimale said.

“In recent days, people are desperate to get to somewhere where we have the supplies – food, medicine, fuel – like we used to have in the days before the siege. Even if they are in refugee camps, people still want to leave the besieged area.”

The ceasefire does not signify an end to the war in Syria, and despite losing ground in Aleppo, the rebels still control large areas of Syria, and so does the Islamic State.

Comment: What is your opinion on the Syrian war? </s> The departure of 4,000 rebel fighters and civilians on Thursday completed the evacuation of what was formerly rebel-held eastern Aleppo. They left the last square kilometre of territory which had remained under nominal rebel control after a Russia and Turkey-backed ceasefire effectively ended the battle on 13 December. Since then, about 40,000 people have left the city amid worsening weather and humanitarian conditions in a fragile and slow-moving evacuation operation.

Rebels had held eastern Aleppo since 2012, but a year of Russian bombing allowed pro-regime forces to gradually encircle their enclave before finally overrunning it in less than a month. With Syria’s civil war far from over, tens of thousands of former Aleppo residents now face a precarious future as refugees in rebel-held Idlib.

With rebel-held Aleppo reduced to a small pocket on the west bank of the Aleppo river and reports of Iranian-backed militias killing civilians in newly captured territory in what the UN called a “meltdown of humanity”, Russia and Turkey made a deal to evacuate rebels and civilians to Idlib province. But on the first full day of the ceasefire, renewed shelling and the refusal of the Iranian-backed militias who had led the regime assault to allow the evacuation put it in doubt.

The evacuation of east Aleppo – if it goes ahead – means the opposition will cede the entire city, Syria’s former commercial capital, to the Assad regime, surrendering the last major urban stronghold where it maintained an active presence.

Rebel-held territory was collapsing rapidly during Monday as pro-regime forces continuously rolled back the frontline in eastern Aleppo. Conditions inside the fast-shrinking rebel enclave were described as “doomsday” by one resident, with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reporting the rebels had already withdrawn from all territory on the east bank of the Aleppo river.

The day began with a pro-regime advance into the strategic districts of Sheikh Saeed and Saliheen, preceded by some of the most intense bombardment of the war. The fall of these areas alone meant the rebels had lost control of at least 90% of the territory they held before the regime launched its ground offensive just over two weeks ago.

The Old City of Aleppo, long a bastion of the Syrian opposition, fell into regime hands after the rebels defending it withdrew fearing being cut off after government soldiers and Iranian-backed militia seized the neighbouring districts of Bab al-Hadid and Aqyul. Pro-Assad forces also took parts of Marjeh as opposition ranks were reportedly divided on whether to leave the city or make a last stand.

Pro-government troops moved to within a kilometre of Aleppo’s ancient citadel on Tuesday as rebel-held districts continued to fall. With up to 70% of eastern Aleppo now back in regime hands, there was fierce fighting as rebels lost control of more territory east of the narrow streets which surround the citadel. Regime forces built on momentum generated over a second consecutive weekend of heavy bombardment and rapid advances. On Monday, Russia vetoed a draft UN security council resolution calling for a ceasefire, ensuring its ally in Damascus remained free to build on its advantage.

Rebels lose a third of their territory in two days

Pro-regime forces led by Iraqi Shia militias and Hezbollah seized control of up to one-third of rebel-held eastern Aleppo after another day of rapid advances. Rebel defences appear to have been fatally weakened since pro-regime airstrikes resumed with renewed ferocity nearly two weeks ago.

The capture earlier in the day of the strategic Sakhour district consolidated Sunday’s regime gains into a wedge that effectively cut rebel territory in two. This manoeuvre briefly left open a small corridor through which rebels withdrew to a new frontline farther south, before pro-regime forces moved to occupy the entire northern third of the rebel enclave.

After 12 days of intense preparatory airstrikes, forces supporting the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, launched a major ground assault on rebel-held eastern Aleppo. The attack was concentrated on the northern part of the rebel enclave; pro-regime forces had been consolidating their control north of this frontline since the siege began in late August. Opposition fighters retreated in the face of a regime advance that captured the areas of Jabal Badro and Masaken Hanano, which was the first district taken by rebels in 2012. Thousands of civilians fled to Kurdish and government-held territory.
Shelling breaks the ceasefire in Aleppo causing disruption to the evacuation of rebels and civilians.