Last Evacuations Resume From Aleppo After Tense Delay

LONDON -- Buses drove some of the last civilians and fighters out of east Aleppo, Syria, today as evacuations resumed after a tense delay.

All critically wounded and sick have now been evacuated from east Aleppo to Orem, a rebel-held town in the western countryside, said the International Committee of the Red Cross.

Some 3,000 residents had been waiting outside in freezing winter weather since Tuesday to board 60 buses that had arrived to the last rebel-held enclave of Aleppo, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a U.K.-based monitoring group. It was snowing today while residents still waited outside.

The evacuations resumed out of Aleppo as buses loaded with civilians from Foua and Kefraya, two pro-government Shiite villages, besieged by opposition forces, were also allowed to move, according to the Observatory.

The ICRC confirmed that evacuations had resumed.

More than 25,000 people have already been evacuated from east Aleppo and 750 from Foua and Kefraya, the ICRC said Tuesday. Turkey put the number higher, saying more than 37,000 had left east Aleppo.

Once the last rebel-held enclave is emptied from its residents, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad will have full control of Aleppo, a big, strategic victory.

The evacuations are part of a ceasefire deal brokered by Russia, Turkey and Iran. The Syrian government and its allies have demanded that rebels allow civilians including sick and wounded to be evacuated from Foua and Kefraya as a condition for letting remaining civilians and fighters leave east Aleppo for the opposition-held western countryside.

Chaos has surrounded the operation, which has broken down several times. Each time, the parties have held the opposing side responsible.

Activists have shared photos of civilians, including children, sitting on the ground, bundled up, while waiting in the cold to board buses leaving east Aleppo. Others reported that they experienced violent incidents and thefts on their way out of the besieged area.

“A Russian officer took my bag with no explanation,” Monther Etaky, an anti-government activist, told ABC News. “And I don’t know who stole the rest of my belongings from the bus.”

He said he lost two laptops, a drone, a camera and a flash when he left east Aleppo on Monday. He said he had tried to leave for the countryside on Friday, but evacuations came to a halt.

"In the end, we received an order to return because the agreement had been canceled," he said. "We heard gunfire, and then people started running, and we went back."

On Sunday, armed men set fire to buses en route to pick up civilians from Foua and Kefraya, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and Jan Egeland, who chairs the United Nations Humanitarian Access Task Force in Syria. A video shows burning buses near men shouting "God is greatest" and taking responsibility for the attacks.

Before the war, Aleppo was Syria’s largest city, with a population of 2 million. The city had been divided into the rebel-held east and the government-held west since 2012. In recent months, the Syrian government, with help from Russia, Iran and other allies, intensified airstrikes on eastern Aleppo and tightened the siege in an attempt to gain full control of the area, which was rebel controlled until recently.