Civilians and rebels prevented from leaving as shelling resumes despite ceasefire deal brokered by Turkey and Russia 
 
 Iran-backed militias are preventing civilians and opposition fighters from leaving the besieged districts of east Aleppo as Russia struggles to convince the Assad government and allied militants to abide by a ceasefire agreement. 
 
 Shelling of the besieged districts resumed on Wednesday morning despite the agreement brokered by Turkish intelligence and the Russian military on Tuesday that would have offered a respite to tens of thousands of trapped civilians. 
 
 
 
 It was unclear on Wednesday when residents would be allowed to leave east Aleppo and whether the deal would hold. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu agency quoted the head of the Turkish Red Crescent as saying nearly 1,000 people from east Aleppo were being held at an Iranian militia checkpoint. 
 
 Rebels inside east Aleppo said they would support the agreement but Iranian-backed militias on the ground, which led the assault into east Aleppo, were blocking it because the deal was reached without Assad or Iran’s involvement. 
 
 
 
 “The sectarian militias want to resume the massacre in Aleppo and the world has to act to prevent this sectarian slaughter led by Iran,” said Bassam Mustafa, a member of the political council of Noureddine Zinki, one of the main rebel groups in east Aleppo. “The opposition will continue to abide by the agreement.” 
 
 Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the group, said Russia was attempting to convince the Assad government to accept the ceasefire. The Turkish foreign minister, Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu, said discussions were ongoing with Russia and Iran to continue the planned evacuations. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Ruined buildings in east Aleppo Photograph: TASS / Barcroft Images 
 
 Russia and Turkey negotiated the agreement apparently without the Assad regime’s knowledge. The Syrian military initially said it had no knowledge of the deal before backtracking and saying the evacuations would begin on Wednesday at 5am Aleppo time. The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo has however yet to begin. 
 
 The confusion over the deal, which imposed a ceasefire at 6pm local time on Tuesday, highlighted the splits and competing interests of Assad’s supporters, which include Russia, Iran and Iran-backed militias on the ground, who were on Tuesday implicated by the United Nations in execution-style shootings of civilians in opposition areas. 
 
 Fight for Aleppo is almost over – but a new chapter of misery begins Read more 
 
 Residents said intense shelling had resumed on Wednesday in their shrinking, besieged enclave, where they had endured what the UN described as a brutal “meltdown of humanity” as forces loyal to Assad rampaged through newly reclaimed districts. 
 
 
 
 Russia said the renewed shelling was a response to rebel attacks. 
 
 The French foreign minister, Jean-Marc Ayrault, said confusion surrounding the evacuation showed it was imperative to have UN observers to manage the process. “France wants the presence of UN observers on the ground and humanitarian organisations like the Red Cross must intervene,” he told France 2 television. 
 
 There had been conflicting accounts of the expected start times for the evacuation. A military official in the pro-Assad alliance had said the evacuation was due to start at 5am (3am GMT), while opposition officials said they had been expecting a first group of wounded people to leave earlier. 
 
 However, none had left by dawn, according to a Reuters witness at the agreed point of departure. Twenty buses were waiting with their engines running but showed no sign of moving into Aleppo’s eastern districts. 
 
 “There is certainly a delay,” said Rami Abdulrahman, director of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor. The pro-opposition Orient TV cited its correspondent as saying the plan might be delayed until Thursday. 
 
 The United Nations said on Wednesday it was not involved in plans to evacuate fighters and civilians, but it was ready to help. 
 
 “[The UN] stands ready to facilitate the voluntary and safe evacuation of injured, sick and vulnerable civilians from the besieged part of the city,” the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said in a statement. 
 
 A senior Turkish official told the Guardian that Ankara and Moscow would act as guarantors of the ceasefire agreement, which would allow “civilians and moderate rebels with light weapons” to leave Aleppo for Idlib province. “Once they reach Idlib, they will be free to relocate,” the official added. 
 
 Rebel officials from Nour al-din al-Zenki and Ahrar al-Sham, two powerful opposition groups with a presence in the city, confirmed the deal to evacuate, but there was confusion over exactly where the opposition would have to go, with rebels saying they would be transported to the western Aleppo countryside. 
 
 Facebook Twitter Pinterest Syrian residents fleeing Aleppo’s Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood arrive in the city’s Fardos district. Photograph: Getty Images 
 
 Weeks of immense suffering and violence in east Aleppo since the Syrian regime and allies began a final push into territory that had been in rebel hands since 2012 have left residents in total despair and increasingly angry at the international community for abandoning them to their fate. 
 
 The US ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told the security council that the Syrian government, along with Russia and Iran, bore responsibility for the deaths of civilians in Aleppo. She accused the three states of putting a “noose” around civilians in the city, asking: “Are you incapable of shame? … Is there no execution of a child that gets under your skin? Is there literally nothing that shames you?” 
 
 Twisted narratives won’t spare Aleppo a moment of its agony | Janine di Giovanni Read more 
 
 The United Nations said it had received reliable reports from multiple sources that pro-Assad forces, including the Iraqi Shia militia Harakat al-Nujaba, had carried out summary killings of at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children, in four different neighbourhoods of east Aleppo that had fallen under government control. 
 
 Iranian leaders were self-congratulatory on Wednesday at the role it had played in the assault. The chief military adviser to the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the city was “liberated thanks to a coalition between Iran, Syria, Russia and Lebanon’s Hezbollah.” 
 
 Reports of killings by the advancing forces raised grave concerns over the fate of tens of thousands of civilians, doctors and activists who have remained in the shrinking rebel enclaves, and who faced death if they stayed there or being tortured and killed in regime-held areas if they fled over government lines. 
 
 
 
 As a White Helmet in Aleppo I ask for only one thing: help | Raed Al Saleh Read more 
 
 Reuters reported that residents in eastern Aleppo were burning personal possessions as they prepared to leave, fearing looting by the Syrian army and Iranian-backed militias. 
 
 
 
 “I really, really hope this deal will materialise because the suffering of civilians on both sides has been immense,” said Pawel Krzysiek, head of media at the International Committee of the Red Cross, who was in Aleppo. “There is a human tragedy happening all over the city. People who lost everything are suffering here enormously.” 
 
 The evacuation of east Aleppo means the opposition will cede the entire city, Syria’s former commercial capital, to the Assad regime, surrendering the last major urban stronghold where it maintained an active presence. 
 
 
 
 Additional reporting by Saeed Kamali Dehghan ||||| ALEPPO, Syria/BEIRUT (Reuters) - An evacuation of rebel-held districts of Aleppo is back on track and expected to begin within hours, officials on both sides of the war said late on Wednesday, a retreat that would mark a major victory for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and end years of fighting. 
 
 An initial deal that would have seen thousands of civilians and opposition fighters granted safe passage out of the city stalled on Wednesday and the planned exodus failed to materialize. 
 
 Iran, one of Assad’s main backers, had imposed new conditions, saying it wanted the simultaneous evacuation of wounded from two villages besieged by rebels, according to rebel and U.N. sources. 
 
 But Abdul Salam Abdul Razak, a military spokesman for the Nour al-Din al Zinki rebel group, said late on Wednesday that a new agreement had been reached which included those villages in Idlib province. “Within the coming hours its implementation will begin,” he told Reuters. 
 
 An official in the Jabha Shamiya rebel group said implementation would begin around 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) on Thursday. 
 
 An official in the pro-Damascus military alliance confirmed the truce deal was on, and said about 15,000 people would be evacuated from the majority Shi’ite villages, Foua and Kefraya, in return for the evacuation from Aleppo of “militants and their families and whoever wants to leave among civilians”. 
 
 He said those leaving Aleppo would head for Idlib province to the west of the city. 
 
 The Jabha Shamiya official however denied that 15,000 people would leave the two villages and said only the wounded would be evacuated. 
 
 It was not immediately clear how the deal had been reached. 
 
 The original ceasefire was brokered by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and opposition backer Turkey on Tuesday. But the planned evacuation of rebel-held areas did not happen and instead shelling and gunfire erupted in the city on Wednesday, with Turkey accusing government forces of breaking the truce. Syrian state television said rebel shelling killed six people. 
 
 The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad al Hussein, said the bombardment by Syrian government forces and their allies “most likely constitutes war crimes”. 
 
 Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan and Russian leader Vladimir Putin agreed in a phone call earlier in the day to make a joint effort to start the process, Turkish presidential sources said. 
 
 Shortly before the new deal was announced, clashes raged in Aleppo. 
 
 Government forces made a new advance in Sukkari - one of just a handful of districts still held by rebels - and brought half of the neighborhood under their control, the Observatory said. Rebels saying they launched an attack against government forces using suicide car bombs. 
 
 The Russian defense ministry said - before the report of the government forces’ advance in Sukkari - that the rebels controlled an enclave of only 2.5 square km (1 square mile). 
 
 RAPID ADVANCES 
 
 At dawn on Wednesday nobody had left under the initial evacuation plan, according to a Reuters witness waiting at the departure point, where 20 buses stood with engines running but showed no sign of moving into rebel districts. 
 
 People in eastern Aleppo had packed their bags and burned personal belongings, fearing looting by the Syrian army and its Iranian-backed militia allies. 
 
 Officials in the military alliance backing Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the evacuation had stalled. 
 
 U.N. war crimes investigators said the Syrian government bore the main responsibility for preventing any attacks and reprisals in eastern Aleppo and that it must hold to account any troops or allied forces committing violations. 
 
 In what appeared to be a separate development from the planned evacuation, the Russian defense ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366 fighters had left rebel-held districts over the past 24 hours. 
 
 Civilians fill containers with water in a rebel-held besieged area of Aleppo, Syria December 14, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail 
 
 A total of 15,000 people, including 4,000 rebel fighters, wanted to leave Aleppo, according to a media unit run by the Syrian government’s ally Hezbollah. 
 
 The evacuation plan was the culmination of two weeks of rapid advances by the Syrian army and its allies that drove insurgents back into an ever-smaller pocket of the city under intense air strikes and artillery fire. 
 
 By taking full control of Aleppo, Assad has proved the power of his military coalition, aided by Russia’s air force and an array of Shi’ite militias from across the region. 
 
 Rebels have been supported by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, but the support they have enjoyed has fallen far short of the direct military backing given to Assad by Russia and Iran. 
 
 Russia’s decision to deploy its air force to Syria 18 months ago turned the war in Assad’s favor after rebel advances across western Syria. In addition to Aleppo, he has won back insurgent strongholds near Damascus this year. 
 
 The government and its allies have focused the bulk of their firepower on fighting rebels in western Syria rather than Islamic State, which this week managed to take back the ancient city of Palmyra, once again illustrating the challenge Assad faces reestablishing control over all Syria. 
 
 FEAR STALKS STREETS 
 
 As the battle for Aleppo unfolded, global concern has risen over the plight of the 250,000 civilians who were thought to remain in its rebel-held eastern sector before the sudden army advance began at the end of November. 
 
 The rout of rebels in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of terrified civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity”. There were food and water shortages in rebel areas, with all hospitals closed. 
 
 On Tuesday, the United Nations voiced deep concern about reports it had received of Syrian soldiers and allied Iraqi fighters summarily shooting dead 82 people in recaptured east Aleppo districts. It accused them of “slaughter”. 
 
 The Syrian army has denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people in east Aleppo as human shields”. 
 
 Slideshow (8 Images) 
 
 Fear stalked the city’s streets. Some survivors trudged in the rain past dead bodies to the government-held west or the few districts still in rebel hands. Others stayed in their homes and awaited the Syrian army’s arrival. ||||| Image copyright AFP/Getty Images Image caption Smoke is seen rising in this rebel-held area on Wednesday 
 
 A deal to evacuate rebel fighters and civilians from eastern Aleppo has stalled, with heavy shelling reported in the Syrian city. 
 
 A ceasefire was declared in Aleppo on Tuesday and buses brought in to ferry people out of the devastated enclave. 
 
 But fighting resumed on Wednesday. Syrian activists also say air strikes over rebel-held territory have resumed. 
 
 The breakdown of the deal, brokered by Russia and Turkey, is being attributed to demands from the government side. 
 
 It is said to be seeking the evacuation of injured fighters and civilians from nearby towns encircled by opposition forces. 
 
 The latest on the ground 
 
 Eastern Aleppo has been held by the rebels since 2012. But they have been squeezed into ever-smaller areas in recent months by a major government offensive, backed by Russian air power. 
 
 In recent days government troops have made sweeping gains. Russia's military said on Wednesday that rebels were confined to only 2.5sq km of the city. 
 
 Image copyright AFP Image caption Buses were brought in for evacuations but have not been used 
 
 Late on Tuesday, Russian UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin told an emergency session of the UN Security Council that "military actions in eastern Aleppo are over". 
 
 Under the evacuation deal, civilians and rebels from eastern Aleppo were to be allowed to go to rebel-held areas in northern Syria. 
 
 Evacuations had been due to start at 05:00 (03:00 GMT), but did not go ahead. Fresh shelling was reported several hours later. 
 
 "The clashes are violent and bombardment is very heavy... it seems as though everything (the ceasefire) is finished," Rami Abdulrahman, director of the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) monitoring group, said. 
 
 The SOHR also said aircraft had resumed bombing in rebel-held areas. 
 
 Russia - Syria's ally - said the Syrian army resumed firing after the rebels broke the truce. Syrian TV reported rebel rocket fire on government-held parts of the city and said at least six people had been killed. 
 
 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accused Syrian forces of breaking the ceasefire deal and called the situation in Aleppo "very fragile". He said civilians had to be allowed to leave. 
 
 The residents still under siege 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption Bombs interrupt interview as Zouhir Alshimale, a journalist in east Aleppo, says there is nowhere to go that is safe 
 
 Residents of besieged eastern Aleppo have faced weeks of bombardment and chronic food and fuel shortages. Medical facilities in the city have largely been reduced to rubble. 
 
 AFP news agency reported that before the fighting had resumed, crowds of civilians, holding belongings, had gathered in the streets to await evacuation. 
 
 Some information continues to emerge from besieged areas: 
 
 Ibrahim Abu-Laith, a spokesman for the White Helmets volunteer rescue group, said more than 40 people were injured in eastern Aleppo 
 
 One resident, Zohair, told the BBC there was total chaos. "We don't know how many casualties there are and if there is anyone to help them" 
 
 "Bombing is ongoing, no one can move," one activist, Mohammad al-Khatib told AFP. "The wounded and dead are lying in the street. No one dares to try and retrieve the bodies" 
 
 Media playback is unsupported on your device Media caption "Here comes the barrel bomb" - trapped resident Joud al-Khatib in Aleppo 
 
 Residents say they fear reprisals from government forces or being forcibly conscripted. There have also been reports of atrocities. 
 
 On Tuesday the UN said it had received reliable evidence of summary executions taking place, saying that in four areas 82 civilians were killed by pro-government forces. It said that many more may have died. 
 
 Syria's government and Russia said the allegations were untrue. 
 
 Meanwhile, the BBC has learned that Western forces are using satellites and unmanned aircraft to gather evidence of possible war crimes in Aleppo and elsewhere in Syria. 
 
 How many people are in eastern Aleppo? 
 
 It is not clear exactly how many people remain in besieged areas. UN envoy Staffan de Mistura put the figure at about 50,000. 
 
 He said there were approximately 1,500 rebel fighters, about 30% of whom were from the jihadist group formerly known as the al-Nusra Front. 
 
 Other local sources say there could be as many as 100,000 people, many of them arriving from areas recently taken by the government. 
 
 High stakes - by Sebastian Usher, BBC Middle East analyst 
 
 The deal to evacuate rebel fighters and civilians out of eastern Aleppo is only the latest and most complex of such arrangements. It is also the one with the highest stakes. 
 
 Rebel-held towns in a ring around Damascus have one by one ceded in similar ways. 
 
 The choreography often follows the same pattern, with buses waiting hours or days at evacuation points as final guarantees on both sides are hammered out. Safe passage to the rebel-held province of Idlib has also been part of such deals. 
 
 More rarely, the agreements have involved reciprocal evacuations from government areas encircled by rebels. That now seems to have been made part of this deal, complicating it further. 
 
 The violence has resumed, but that does not mean that the deal is off. The rebels have reached a point of no return. Many more lives may be lost in the meantime, but it is all but certain that the fighters will leave Aleppo. ||||| BEIRUT/AMMAN (Reuters) - Armed men burned five buses that were supposed to be used for an evacuation near Idlib in Syria on Sunday, stalling a deal to allow thousands to depart the last rebel pocket in Aleppo, where evacuees crammed into buses for hours before departing the city. 
 
 The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the evacuation of the villages near Idlib had been postponed as a result of the incident. Five buses leaving Aleppo were held, packed with evacuees, for hours before they could drive the 5 km (3 miles) to rebel-held territory outside. 
 
 In return for the evacuation of fighters, their families and other civilians from Aleppo, the mostly Sunni insurgents had agreed that people in the villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, Shi’ite villages that they have besieged near Idlib, should also be allowed to leave. 
 
 Videos posted on social media showed bearded men with guns cheering and shouting “God is great” after torching the green buses before they were able to reach the villages. 
 
 State media said “armed terrorists”, a term it uses for all groups fighting President Bashar al-Assad, had carried out the attack. Pro-Damascus Mayadeen television and the Observatory blamed the rebel group formerly known as the Nusra Front. 
 
 Rebel officials said an angry crowd of people, possibly alongside pro-government “operatives”, was responsible. 
 
 Although the Aleppo evacuation convoy was eventually cleared to drive to rebel-held al-Rashideen, there was no official word on what impact the bus burning would have on the departure of more convoys from the city and the two villages. 
 
 While the Observatory said the convoy of five buses had reached al-Rashideen, a United Nations official in Syria said only that they had left east Aleppo, adding: “The evacuations are on”. 
 
 Robert Mardini, regional director for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which is at the forefront of the operation, tweeted that the buses and one ambulance of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent “just left dark & cold E #Aleppo”, adding: “Hopeful operation will proceed smoothly.” 
 
 Related Coverage U.N. council to vote Monday on monitoring Aleppo evacuation 
 
 Russian President Vladimir Putin, Assad’s main foreign backer, and Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan, the rebels’ main supporter, agreed by telephone on Sunday that the disruptions must be quickly overcome, sources in Erdogan’s office said. 
 
 The commander of forces allied to Assad said there was still a chance for states with influence over rebel groups to find a way to evacuate civilians safely. 
 
 In a statement carried by a military news outlet run by Damascus’s ally, the Lebanese group Hezbollah, the allied forces leadership said responsibility for the delay in the evacuation falls with “terrorists and their state sponsors”. 
 
 Some 40 km (26 miles) to the northeast, hundreds of fighters and their families in Aleppo sat or stood in buses, hoping the evacuation would resume after a three-day hiatus. 
 
 Syrian state television, citing its correspondent in the city, said buses had started to leave east Aleppo where over 15,000 people had gathered in a square to wait, many after a night sleeping in the streets in freezing temperatures. 
 
 Aleppo had been divided between government and rebel areas in the nearly six-year-long war, but a lightning advance by the Syrian army and its allies began in mid-November following months of intense air strikes, forcing the insurgents out of most of the rebel-held territory within a matter of weeks. 
 
 “EVERYONE IS WAITING” 
 
 According to Syria’s al-Ikhbariya TV news, about 1,200 civilians would initially be evacuated from east Aleppo and a similar number from the two villages. 
 
 A document cited by al-Manar television and passed to Reuters by rebels and activists said the entire deal would see 2,500 citizens leave al-Foua and Kefraya in two batches, in exchange for the evacuation of people from east Aleppo in two corresponding batches. 
 
 A man on a motorcycle drives past burning buses while en route to evacuate ill and injured people from the besieged Syrian villages of al-Foua and Kefraya, after they were attacked and burned, in Idlib province, Syria December 18, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah 
 
 Following this, another 1,500 would leave al-Foua and Kefraya in exchange for the evacuation of 1,500 from the towns of Madaya and Zabadani near Lebanon, which are besieged by pro-government forces. 
 
 Once evacuees from the villages have safely arrived in government areas, Aleppo fighters and more of their family members will be allowed to leave, in return for subsequent batches of people departing al-Foua and Kefraya, al-Ikhbariya TV reported. 
 
 In the square in Aleppo’s Sukari district, organizers gave every family a number to allow them on buses. 
 
 “Everyone is waiting until they are evacuated. They just want to escape,” said Salah al Attar, a former teacher with his five children, wife and mother. 
 
 Thousands of people were evacuated on Thursday, the first to leave under a ceasefire deal that would end years of fighting for the city and mark a major victory for Assad. 
 
 They were taken to rebel-held districts of the countryside west of Aleppo. Turkey has said Aleppo evacuees could also be housed in a camp to be constructed near the Turkish border to the north. 
 
 UNITED NATIONS VOTE 
 
 The chaos surrounding the evacuation reflects the complexity of Syria’s civil war, with an array of groups and foreign interests involved on all sides. 
 
 The United Nations Security Council agreed on Sunday on a compromise draft resolution on U.N. officials monitoring the evacuations from Aleppo. It will vote on the text on Monday. 
 
 Russia said it would veto an earlier draft by France but circulated an alternative version. 
 
 Slideshow (20 Images) 
 
 “We expect to vote unanimously for this text tomorrow at 9 a.m. (1400 GMT),” U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Samantha Power, told reporters after more than three hours of negotiations. 
 
 Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said: “I think we have a good text, we agreed to vote tomorrow morning.” 
 
 Russia, which has provided military backing to Assad, has vetoed six Security Council resolutions on Syria since the conflict started in 2011. China joined Moscow in vetoing five resolutions. 
 
 A crackdown by Assad on pro-democracy protesters in 2011 led to civil war, and Islamic State militants have used the chaos to seize territory in Syria and Iraq. Half of Syria’s 22 million people have been uprooted and more than 400,000 killed.
– Looks like the "complete meltdown of humanity" in Aleppo will continue for at least another day. The ceasefire declared in the war-ravaged Syrian city Tuesday appears, to nobody's surprise, to have broken down, leaving tens of thousands of civilians in rebel-held areas stranded in desperate conditions. Reuters reports that a planned evacuation has stalled amid fierce fighting and what rebels say is a resumption of airstrikes by Russian-backed Syrian government forces. Buses that were supposed to evacuate fighters and civilians to rebel-held areas outside the city returned to their depots Wednesday morning, the AP reports. Activists say Iran-backed militias and Syrian government forces blocked the evacuation after demanding that the Russia- and Turkey-brokered deal be changed to allow the evacuation of their own injured fighters from towns in rebel-held zones, reports the BBC. "The sectarian militias want to resume the massacre in Aleppo and the world has to act to prevent this sectarian slaughter led by Iran," a member of rebel group Noureddine Zinkitells the Guardian. "The opposition will continue to abide by the agreement." Russia, which claims thousands of civilians and hundreds of fighters left the remaining rebel-held portion of Aleppo over the last 24 hours, says Syrian forces are responding to rebel attacks, and they expect resistance to end over the next two or three days.