Evacuation of Aleppo could resume after villages deal

AN agreement has been reached to allow “humanitarian cases” to leave two besieged government-held Shiite villages in north-western Syria, a step which would allow the evacuations of civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo to resume, Hezbollah’s media arm and a monitoring group have said.

The opposition’s Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the evacuation of some 4,000 people, including wounded, from the villages of Foua and Kfarya was expected to start on Saturday.

Hezbollah fighters have joined the Syrian war, fighting along with President Bashar Assad’s forces. Opposition activists blamed the Lebanese group for blocking the main road south of Aleppo and blocking evacuations from rebel-held eastern neighbourhoods of the city.

The Aleppo evacuation was suspended on Friday after a report of shooting at a crossing point into the enclave by both sides of the conflict. Thousands were evacuated before the process was suspended.

The Syrian government said the village evacuations and the one in eastern Aleppo must be done simultaneously, but the rebels say there is no connection.

A Syrian State TV correspondent, speaking from Aleppo, said yesterday that the main condition for the Aleppo evacuation to resume is for residents of Foua and Kfarya to be allowed to leave.

Syrian children wait for other members of their family after they crossed into Turkey at the Cilvegozu border gate with Syria, near Hatay. It was not immediately clear where in Syria most people that crossed into Turkey were coming from, but one woman...