Evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo underway

Around 1,000 civilians and 26 wounded people have been evacuated in buses and ambulances from a besieged rebel-held enclave in the Syrian city of Aleppo.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said it expects this number to double by the end of the day.

“This for us is the first step, it was a positive one,” Robert Mardini, the ICRC’s regional director for the Near and Middle East, told Reuters news agency. “We were able so far to evacuate 26 wounded people from east Aleppo and close to 1,000 civilians, who were transferred from east Aleppo to western rural Aleppo.”

Syrian government forces, backed by Russian allies, this week took over nearly all remaining rebel-held parts of Aleppo after a four-year battle.

It represents a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad, who hailed the "liberation" of Aleppo and said history was being made.

The evacuation of civilians, rebels and their families had been due to take place on Wednesday but an earlier ceasefire deal collapsed. It is unclear how many rebels are being evacuated along with civilians.

Syrian state TV had earlier reported that "4,000 rebels and their families would be evacuated from eastern districts on Thursday", and that "all the procedures for their evacuation" were ready.

A statement from the Russian Centre for the Reconciliation of Opposing Sides in Syria, part of Russia's ministry of defence, said the Syrian authorities had guaranteed the safety of all members of the armed groups who decided to leave Aleppo.

Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shia movement supporting the Syrian government, said there had been "big complications" but that "intensive contacts... led to re-consolidating a ceasefire to exit armed fighters from

As evacuation operations began, an ambulance service official in eastern Aleppo said that one convoy of ambulances had been shot at, with three people injured.

The White Helmets civil defence group tweeted that a senior volunteer had been shot and injured by a sniper while clearing an evacuation route for ambulances.