John Bacon

USA TODAY

Russia and France agreed Sunday on a plan to provide U.N. monitoring of evacuations from eastern Aleppo and distribute needed humanitarian aid to the war-torn Syrian city.

The United Nations Security Council scheduled a Monday vote on the plan.

On Sunday, the effort to shuttle thousands of rebels and civilians out of eastern Aleppo neighborhoods was dealt another setback when several rescue buses were set ablaze.

Syrian government forces agreed to the evacuations after rebels, in return, said they would allow thousands of people safe transport from two pro-government villages besieged by rebel forces west of Aleppo. Several buses sent to the villages of Foah and Kefraya, however, were torched.

Syrian media blamed the bus fires on a Sunni terrorist group linked to al-Qaeda, called Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. The militant group sometimes fights alongside U.S.-backed rebels combating the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad.

"Reckless armed men burning buses for Foah and Kefraya undermine evacuation and relief for all civilians in besieged areas in Syria," Jan Egeland, chairman of a U.N. Syria task force, said on Twitter. He said the "cowardly terrorists" had killed a bus driver.

Obama: 'I always feel responsible' for Aleppo

Thousands of rebels and civilians were evacuated Thursday from eastern Aleppo before a cease-fire collapsed, leaving civilians stranded along the route with little food and no shelter.

On Sunday, evacuation organizers in Aleppo's Sukari district issued numbers to families wanting to board buses. Salah al Attar, a former teacher, waited with his five children, wife and mother for their number to be called.

"Everyone is waiting (here) until they are evacuated," he told Reuters. "They just want to escape."

Russia’s U.N. Ambassador Vitaly Churkin earlier said his country would veto a "disaster" of a resolution initially put forward by France to deploy a United Nations monitoring mission in Aleppo to oversee the effort. Russia then circulated its own draft resolution, and the two countries reached a compromise deal a short time later.

Aleppo has been the scene of a humanitarian crisis for months as rebel forces cling to eastern sections of the city amid a onslaught from government troops backed by Soviet firepower.

Russia has been the focus of much ire from advocacy groups seeking aid for beleaguered Aleppo. Syrian human rights and international physician groups submitted a report last week to the U.N. Commission of Inquiry for Syria, citing Russian responsibility for and complicity in war crimes in the battered city.

The groups called on the commission to investigate Russian responsibility for war crimes in Aleppo and to report on its findings in its special inquiry due in March.

"Russia’s airstrikes have targeted schools, hospitals, maternity wards, mosques, homes and ambulances," the groups warned. “Russia has air-dropped incendiary weapons and cluster munitions on heavily populated civilian areas. Not even rescue workers or aid providers have been spared Russia’s strikes.”