Russia, France in deal on Aleppo

UN monitors will oversee evacuation

BEIRUT • Russia and France announced agreement Sunday on a compromise United Nations resolution to deploy UN monitors to eastern Aleppo to ensure the safe evacuation of thousands of trapped civilians and the immediate delivery of humanitarian aid.

France’s UN ambassador, François Delattre, told reporters after more than three hours of closed consultations that the UN Security Council will vote on the compromise resolution Monday morning.

He said some countries wanted to report to their capitals overnight and “hopefully we’ll have a positive vote” but he was still “cautious at this stage.”

Earlier Sunday, pro-Syrian government TV stations showed dozens of buses on standby at a crossing near east Aleppo, reportedly poised to resume evacuations from the opposition’s last foothold in the city.

The evacuations had been suspended two days earlier amid mutual recriminations after several thousand people had been ferried out of the war zone. Thousands are believed to still be trapped inside.

About 2,700 children were evacuated in the first rescue mission, but hundreds more “are now waiting in freezing temperatures, close to the front lines,” said Shusan Mebrahtu of the UN agency for children, UNICEF. “We are deeply worried.”

Several buses with Aleppo evacuees had been stuck for hours without food or water in a buffer zone between the front lines in the city, according to aid officials familiar with the negotiations between the two sides.

East Aleppo resident Rami Zien, who said he was on one of the buses “stopped (in) a no-man’s land,” told The Associated Press via messenger service that evacuees were stressed and frightened.

“Government forces are just ahead of me and if anything goes wrong I’ll be the first to die,” he wrote.

Zien said evacuees were crammed, 70 people to a bus, with many having no room to sit. He said the Red Crescent, which is facilitating the evacuation, had been unable to provide water. He said there were between 50 to 60 buses in the convoy.

The Aleppo evacuations were to have been part of a wider deal that would simultaneously allow more than 2,000 sick and wounded people to leave two pro-government villages that have been besieged by Syrian rebels. Most villagers are Shiite Muslims, while most rebels are Sunni Muslims. That evacuation plan suffered a setback on Sunday however, when militants burned buses involved in the rescue operation.

Six buses that were among those poised to enter the villages of Foua and Kfarya were set on.