A senior United
Nations official warned on Thursday that thousands of people evacuated from
rebel-held areas of Aleppo after a crushing government offensive could
suffer
the same fate in their new place of refuge outside the city.
U.N. Special Envoy
Staffan de Mistura said a cessation of hostilities across Syria was vital if
another battle like the bloody fight for Aleppo was to be avoided.
At least 34,000
people, both civilians and fighters, had been evacuated from east Aleppo in a
week-long operation, the latest U.N. figures show.
"Many of them
have gone to Idlib, which could be in theory the next Aleppo," de Mistura
warned in Geneva.
Thousands of
refugees from Aleppo were ferried to Idlib, arousing fears that the rebel-held
city in northwestern Syria could be next. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has
declared that the war is far from over and that his armed forces would march on
other rebel-held areas.
Evacuees from Aleppo
had expressed concerns about being taken to Idlib and a senior European
diplomat said earlier this month that this would suit Russia, Assad's main
military backer, as it would put "all their rotten eggs in one
basket".
Assad said that
regaining full control of Aleppo was a victory shared by his Russian and
Iranian allies.
The last group of
civilians and rebels holed up in a small enclave was expected to leave in the
next 24 hours, with the Syrian army and its allies seizing all of the city,
delivering the biggest prize of the nearly six-year war to Assad.
In comments after
meeting a senior Iranian delegation, Assad said his battlefield successes were
a "basic step on the road to ending terrorism in the whole of Syria and
creating the right circumstances for a solution to end the war".
Russia's air force
conducted hundreds of raids that pulverized rebel-held parts of Aleppo while
Iranian-backed militias, led by the Lebanese group Hezbollah, poured thousands
of fighters to fight rebels into the city.
Defence Minister
Sergei Shoigu said on Thursday that Russian air strikes in Syria had killed
35,000 rebel fighters and halted a chain of revolutions in the Middle East.
Speaking at a
gathering of senior military officials that appeared designed to showcase
Russia's military achievements, Shoigu said Moscow's intervention had prevented
the collapse of the Syrian state.
LAST STAGES
More fighters were
evacuated overnight from east Aleppo to opposition-held areas under an
agreement between the warring sides, the International Committee of the Red
Cross said.
"In one of the
last stages of the evacuation, more than 4,000 fighters were evacuated in
private cars, vans, and pick-ups from eastern Aleppo to western rural
Aleppo," ICRC spokeswoman Krista Armstrong said.
This brought to
around 34,000 the total number of people evacuated from the district over the
past week in an operation hampered by heavy snow and wind, she said.
"The evacuation
will continue for the entire day and night and most probably tomorrow (Friday).
Thousands are still expected to be evacuated," Armstrong said.
"Most are
heading towards camps, or to their relatives, or shelter locations," said
Ahmad al-Dbis, a medical aid worker heading a team evacuating patients from
Aleppo. "The humanitarian situation in northern Syria is very difficult,
because the area is already densely populated since it has people displaced
from all over Syria."
Those leaving Aleppo
are not only going to Idlib, the name of a city and province southwest of
Aleppo, but to villages in the countryside in Aleppo province that lies west
and north of the city and has also been heavily bombed.
Ahmed Kara Ali,
spokesman for Ahrar al Sham, a rebel group that is involved in departure
negotiations, told Reuters "large numbers" were left but it was
difficult to estimate how many remained, beyond it being in the thousands.
Hundreds of other
people are also still being evacuated from two villages besieged by rebels near
Idlib and taken to government lines in Aleppo, part of the deal that has
allowed insurgents to withdraw from the city carrying light weapons.
HEAVY SNOW
Another rebel
official said a heavy snow storm that hit northern Syria and the sheer numbers
of civilians still remaining were among the factors behind the delay in the
mass evacuation.
"The numbers of
civilians, their cars alongside and of course the weather all are making the
evacuation slow," Munir al-Sayal, head of the political wing of Ahrar al
Sham, said, adding he expected the operation to be completed on Thursday.
The tiny pocket they
are fleeing is all that remains of a rebel sector that covered nearly half the
city before being besieged in the summer, the cue for intense air strikes that
reduced swathes of it to rubble. As the months of bombardment wore on, rescue
and health services collapsed.
The once-flourishing
economic center with its renowned ancient sites has been devastated during the
war which has killed more than 300,000 people, created the world's worst
refugee crisis and allowed for the rise of Islamic State.
ASSAD'S FUTURE
Russia is not
discussing the future of Assad in its talks with Iran and Turkey, Deputy
Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said.
The foreign and
defense ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey met in Moscow on Tuesday and
agreed to help broker a new peace deal for Syria.
De Mistura said that
cessation of hostilities across Syria was a "priority" and having
"regional players like Turkey, Russia and Iran talk to each other is a
good thing".
Quoting Russian
President Vladimir Putin, de Mistura said talks expected to be held in
Kazakhstan were "not considered a competition, it is complementary and a
support to the preparation of the U.N. role (in Syrian peace talks) on 8
Feb."
REUTERS
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