Fresh pact allows evacuation of wounded civilians from villages of Fua and Kefraya, as well as two towns near Lebanese border

A new deal has been reached to evacuate thousands of civilians still trapped in rebel-held areas of eastern Aleppo, after the original pact broke down over demands from pro-government forces that two villages besieged by rebels must also be evacuated.

About 8,000 civilians had been evacuated from the small area of rebel territory in the city, but tens of thousands more were waiting to leave when the government of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, suspended the pact, which was negotiated by Turkey and Russia.

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The suspension was said to have resulted from the refusal of al-Qaida-linked militants to allow the evacuation of wounded civilians from Fua and Kefraya, two Shia villages in the Idlib province that have been besieged by Islamist rebels for years and whose relief was part of the agreement, offered as a concession to Iran. Tehran-backed militias spearheaded the assault on east Aleppo.



Confusion reigned on Friday when the government stopped convoys from leaving the city, saying rebel fighters had fired on them at a crossing point into the enclave. Rebels said pro-government forces had opened fire first.

The Syrian rebel official Al-Farouk Abu Bakr told the local TV channel al Arabiya al Hadath on Saturday that the new deal comprised an evacuation from the two villages, the evacuation of wounded people from two towns besieged by pro-government forces near the Lebanese border and the full evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo.

The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the evacuation from the villages of about 4,000 people, including the wounded, could start on Saturday.

The former foreign secretary David Miliband warned of “house-to-house murder” being carried out in Aleppo and expressed fears that the carnage could spread to Idlib. The US-based charity International Rescue, of which Miliband is the president, still had aid workers in the Syrian city.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Residents gather near green government buses as they hold their belongings for evacuation from eastern Aleppo. Photograph: Uncredited/AP

“The truth is there’s chaos, people are looking to find their families and people are reporting ... that the ceasefire is holding; others that there is no safety at all and it’s sheer terror.

“And that is the only way to describe this because people are fleeing from appalling bombardment and house-to-house murder that’s being documented by the UN, and they don’t know if it’s going to follow them from Aleppo to Idlib,” he told the BBC Radio 4 Today programme on Saturday.

Miliband also criticised the 2013 Commons vote that refused to support David Cameron’s call to back US military intervention after the Syrian regime used chemical weapons against its own people.

Opposition to Cameron’s stance was led by the former leader of the Labour party, Ed Miliband. Though the ex-foreign secretary did not mention his brother by name, he said the Commons decision had contributed to a vacuum of western leadership.

“I think that was quite important,” he said. “The red line over chemical weapons needed to mean something to uphold international norms, never mind American credibility and support.

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“Secondly, I think that the vote – which, after all, 560 MPs voted to support military action under certain conditions, they just couldn’t agree with each other as to what those conditions should be – sowed a deal of confusion that I think undoubtedly contributed to the sense of vacuum that has been discussed and described this week.”



On Friday, Barack Obama, the US president, denounced the horror in Aleppo and called for the presence of impartial observers. He warned that Assad would not be able to “slaughter his way to legitimacy”.

“The world, as we speak, is united in horror at the savage assault by the Syrian regime and its Russian and Iranian allies on the city of Aleppo,” the US president told an end-of-year news conference. “This blood and these atrocities are on their hands.”

The United Nations security council is expected to vote this weekend on a proposal drafted by France to ensure the operation is coordinated by international observers, with urgent humanitarian aid being allowed into Aleppo and hospitals receiving protection.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, said after a closed-door council meeting that UN officials were ready to be sent quickly to Aleppo. “The presence of independent observers can deter some of the worst horrors,” she said.

François Delattre, France’s ambassador to the UN, said: “The immediate priority is to save lives, to stop the massacres and to avoid a new Srebrenica,” he said. referring to the massacre of Bosnian Muslims during the Balkan wars.