A ceasefire has been reached between Moscow and Syrian rebels allowing the evacuation of civilians and fighters from eastern Aleppo, the Russian ambassador to the UN has said.

The amabassador informed the international community on Tuesday evening that the Syrian-led "counter-terrorism operation" in eastern Aleppo will end in a few hours.

The alleged agreemnet will effectively cede the remainder of Syria's largest city to government troops after months of a deadly siege.

The ceasefire comes after the UN reported possible mass killings by government troops as they closed in on the rebels’ last enclave in the city.

Osama Abu Zayd, a Turkey-based legal advisor for an umbrella group of rebel factions known as the Free Syrian Army, said the ceasefire went into effect on Tuesday evening and that the first batch will begin evacuating within hours.

Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, confirmed the ceasefire and said the goal is to evacuate civilians and rebels from besieged areas.

It was not immediately clear whether the hostilities had ceased in Aleppo. The opposition-run Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said shelling was continuing.

World leaders and aid agencies issued dramatic appeals on behalf of trapped residents earlier Tuesday, and the UN human rights office said that pro-government forces reportedly killed 82 civilians "on the spot" as they closed in on remaining rebel districts.

That and other reports of mass killings, which could not be independently confirmed, reinforce fears of atrocities in eastern Aleppo in the final hours of the battle for the city - which has been split between rebel and government control since 2012.

Several residents and opposition activists said that government forces carried out summary killings of rebels in the streets in neighbourhoods captured on Monday, but the Syrian military flatly denied the claims, saying such allegations were "a desperate attempt" to try gain international sympathy.</s>(CNN) Hours after a planned evacuation of people from bombarded areas of eastern Aleppo, no one has left, according to a monitoring group.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said in a statement that several buses remained idle in neighborhoods of the stricken city, over two hours after the evacuation was due to commence.

The first group of civilians scheduled to leave is supposed to consist of 70 injured people and family members -- a total of 150 people.

Rebel fighters were also offered safe passage out of the devastated city under a ceasefire deal brokered largely by Turkey.

Morning from #Aleppo - still waiting for this rebel evacuation to happen pic.twitter.com/oBtkbqv0f8

CNN affiliate ITN, who has a reporter on the ground, has also posted on social media that no buses have left.

An ICRC official in Aleppo told CNN that the organization "is ready to help the parties to this agreement in overseeing the evacuation of civilians."

He added that they are "on standby" in case a request is made to support in the evacuation.

'Are you truly incapable of shame?'

Activists said anyone with links to the rebels who seized control of neighborhoods in 2012 was being hunted down.

"Every hour, butcheries are carried out," the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Monday.

Speaking at a UN Security Council Emergency Briefing on Syria, US ambassador Samantha Power had some scathing words for her Syrian, Iranian and Russian counterparts.

"You bear responsibility for these atrocities," she said of the plight of eastern Aleppo residents amid reports of widespread summary executions, including of women and children, by Syrian forces in formerly rebel-held areas.

"When one day there is a full accounting of the horrors committed in this assault of Aleppo -- and that day will come, sooner or later -- you will not be able to say you did not know what was happening."

The Syrian government did not comment on the killings in state-run media. CNN has not been able to verify the execution reports.

She said the actions of the three players "should shame" them.

"Three Member States of the UN contributing to a noose around civilians. It should shame you. Instead, by all appearances, it is emboldening you... Are you truly incapable of shame?"

Ban: No way to verify numbers

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said reports suggested that thousands of people remain in the city. However, he added the Syrian government had denied the UN access to independently verify the numbers.

"However, this does not mean that the reports that we are receiving are not credible," he said.

Ban said that the Russian Defense Ministry had reported that it had helped as many as 100,000 civilians to leave eastern Aleppo neighborhoods, including 40,484 children.

The ministry also claimed that it had supplied 78 tons of humanitarian assistance to displaced people, he said.

After the meeting, Staffan de Mistura, UN special envoy to Syria, said he was informed by the Russian ambassador that an agreement on Aleppo was reached, but that the UN still needs to verify the deal.

"(The agreement) is imminent, if not already taking place," he said. "It's not clear to me yet as whether they are allowed to withdraw with their light weapons, which was one of the issues which had been discussed, or without weapons."

Vitaly Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations, told the UN Security Council Tuesday that the Syrian government has established control over eastern Aleppo.

"Over the last hour we've received information that the military activities in east Aleppo have stopped," Churkin said.

Aleppo Media Center posted to its Facebook page on Tuesday that a ceasefire had been announced in the city "in preparation for the evacuation of civilians from besieged areas through safe passages."

The ceasefire and evacuation agreement was reached with "Turkish mediation," a commander in the Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham told CNN.

Hospital director: People can't even bury the dead

Al-Quds Hospital Director Dr. Hamza al-Khatib told CNN's Christiane Amanpour that the regime has committed "a lot of executions." Even children get slaughtered, he said -- especially if they come from families that have opposed Assad's government.

"People are scared to go out in the street. Dead bodies haven't been taken to the graveyard to be buried," he said.

"A lot of people are scared to go to graveyards to bury their own family members. A lot of dead bodies are in front of the hospital. And no one can come here to take them to get buried."

He said that for some, even death is more welcome than life under Assad rule.

"A lot of neighborhoods have fallen down, and now it's under the regime control," he said Tuesday. "Now we only have left six neighborhoods. We are very afraid that all of us may be arrested or killed. Actually, most of the people wish that they may be killed (by) shelling rather than being arrested and captured and Assad (is) president."

The Turkish Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed that talks between rebels in eastern Aleppo and the Russian military led to the ceasefire deal. Under the agreement, civilians and then opposition fighters will evacuate to nearby Idlib, the ministry said.

There has been no confirmation of a cessation of hostilities or an evacuation agreement by Syrian state media.

The UN Security Council held an emergency meeting Tuesday to address the situation.

Rebel groups held eastern Aleppo for more than four years after the Arab Spring uprising and a Syrian regime siege on the area had essentially cut it off from the outside world, sparking a humanitarian crisis there.

Thousands were fleeing Monday as bombs continued to fall on the remaining rebel-held areas of the city.

The Assad regime was already in control of western Aleppo and in just over two weeks has taken most if not all of the east. Seizing the whole of Aleppo would put the government in control of Syria's five major cities, marking a turning point in the war.</s>Syrian rebels tonight said they have reached a ceasefire deal with Moscow to evacuate civilians and fighters from eastern Aleppo.

The deal comes after the United Nations and opposition activists reported possible mass killings by government forces closing in on the rebels’ last enclave.

There was no immediate comment from Damascus or Moscow on the deal, which would effectively cede the remainder of Syria’s largest city to president Bashar al-Assad’s forces after months of fighting and a crippling siege.

Osama Abu Zayd, a Turkey-based legal adviser for the umbrella group of rebel factions known as the Free Syrian Army, said the ceasefire went into effect last night and the first group of people would begin leaving within hours.

Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, confirmed the ceasefire and said the goal is to evacuate civilians and rebels from besieged areas.

It was not immediately clear whether the hostilities had ceased in Aleppo. The opposition-run Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said shelling was continuing.

World leaders and aid agencies issued dramatic appeals on behalf of trapped residents earlier yesterday. The UN human rights office said that pro-government forces reportedly killed 82 civilians “on the spot” as they closed in on remaining rebel districts.

That and other reports of mass killings, which could not be independently confirmed, reinforce fears of atrocities in the final hours of the battle for the city, which has been split between rebel and government control since 2012.

Several residents and opposition activists said that government forces carried out summary killings of rebels in the streets in neighbourhoods captured on Monday, but the Syrian military denied the claims, saying such allegations were “a desperate attempt” to try gain international sympathy.

The UN’s children agency Unicef said that there could be more than 100 unaccompanied children trapped in building under fire in eastern Aleppo, citing a report from an unnamed doctor in the city.

Regional director Geert Cappalaere said Unicef is concerned over the reports of “extrajudicial killings of civilians, including children”. The UN’s human rights office said it has received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians in four neighbourhoods of the shrinking rebel enclave, including 11 women and 13 children.

Spokesman Rupert Colville said the reports recount pro-government forces entering homes and killing civilians “on the spot”. He said the reports came in late on Monday and he does not know exactly when the killings took place.</s>Thousands of people fled the front lines of fighting in Aleppo on Tuesday as the Syrian military hammered the final pocket of rebel resistance and Russia rejected an immediate ceasefire.

The rout of rebels from their ever-shrinking territory in Aleppo sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather, a crisis the United Nations said was a “complete meltdown of humanity” with civilians being shot dead.

The U.N. human rights office said it had reports of abuses, including that the army and allied Iraqi militiamen summarily killed at least 82 civilians in captured districts of the city, once a flourishing economic center with renowned ancient sites.

Related: ‘Every person can help’: Raed al-Saleh talks about Syrian rescue group the White Helmets

Related: We're the White Helmets – ordinary Syrians on a rescue mission

Globe editorial: Syrian refugees need a little more help adapting to their new home

“The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said Rupert Colville, spokesman for the U.N. office. “There could be many more.”

Behind those fleeing was a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and bullet-pocked walls, where tens of thousands had lived until recent days under intense bombardment even after medical and rescue services had collapsed.

Colville said the rebel-held area was “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometer, adding its capture was imminent.

The Syrian army and its allies are in the “last moments before declaring victory” in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defenses collapsed, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.

Turkish and Russian officials will meet on Wednesday to examine a possible ceasefire and opening a corridor, a senior Turkish official, who declined to be identified, told Reuters.

But Moscow, the Syrian government’s most powerful ally, rejected any immediate call for a ceasefire. “The Russian side wants to do that only when the corridors are established,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday.

The spokesman for the civil defense force in the former rebel area of Aleppo said rebels now controlled an area of less than three sq km. “The situation is very, very bad. The civil defense has stopped operating in the city,” he told Reuters.

A surrender or withdrawal of the rebels from Aleppo would mean the end of the rebellion in the city, Syria’s largest until the outbreak of war after mass protests in 2011, but it is unclear if such a deal can be struck by world powers.

By finally dousing the last embers of resistance burning in Aleppo, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s military coalition of the army, Russian air power and Iran-backed militias will have delivered him his biggest battlefield victory of the war.

However, while the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, will suffer a crushing defeat in Aleppo, the war will be far from over.

Aleppo’s loss will leave the rebels without a significant presence in any of Syria’s main cities, but they still hold much of the countryside west of Aleppo and the province of Idlib, also in northwest Syria.

Islamic State also has a big presence in Syria and has advanced in recent days, taking the desert city of Palmyra.

The army and its allies had taken full control over all the Aleppo districts abandoned by rebels during their retreat in the city, a Syrian military source said on Tuesday.

After days of intense bombardment of rebel-held areas, the rate of shelling and air strikes dropped considerably late on Monday and through the night as the weather deteriorated, a Reuters reporter in the city said.

However, rocket fire pounded rebel-held areas, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, reported. Rebels and government forces still fought at points around the reduced enclave, the Observatory said.

The U.N. children’s agency UNICEF cited an unnamed doctor in Aleppo as saying that many unaccompanied children were trapped in a building that was under attack, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said it had no knowledge of the incident.

“Artillery shelling is continuing but because of the weather the aerial bombing has stopped. Many of the families and children have not left for areas under the control of the regime because their fathers are from the rebels,” said Abu Ibrahim, a resident of Aleppo in a text message.

Colville said he feared retribution. “In all, as of yesterday evening we have received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians, including 11 women and 13 children,” Colville told a news briefing, naming the Iraqi armed group Harakat al-Nujaba as reportedly involved in the killings.

The military official said the rebels were fleeing “in a state of panic,” but a Turkish-based official with the Jabha Shamiya insurgent group in Aleppo said on Monday night that they had established a new frontline along the river.

“The bombardment is not on the frontlines, the greater burden of the bombardment is on the civilians, and this is what is causing a burden on us,” the official said.

Terrible conditions were described by city residents. Abu Malek al-Shamali, a resident in the rebel area, said dead bodies lay in the streets. “There are many corpses in Fardous and Bustan al Qasr with no one to bury them,” he said.</s>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.</s>BEIRUT—Syrian President Bashar Assad accused western countries of seeking a ceasefire in the city of Aleppo in order to save “the terrorists” as the ceasefire deal between rebels and the Syrian government effectively collapsed on Wednesday.

Assad spoke to the Russia Today channel in excerpts of an interview aired Wednesday.

Assad said the ceasefire was to stop his government’s advance in the city and “keep the terrorists and save them.” He also said the capture of the ancient city of Palmyra by Daesh (also known as ISIS or ISIL) militants was to “distract” from the Aleppo offensive.

Fighter jets resumed deadly air raids over the opposition’s densely crowded enclave in the east of the city.

His government’s attacks threatened to scuttle plans to evacuate rebels and tens of thousands of civilians out of harm’s way, in what would seal the opposition’s surrender of the city.

The evacuation was supposed to begin at dawn but shelling resumed in the morning hours and buses meant to be used in the pullout of rebels and civilians returned to their depots. Activists and fighters trapped in the opposition’s last sliver of territory in Aleppo said pro-government forces had struck their district with dozens of rockets since mid-morning.

They said aircraft resumed bombing shortly after noon.

“They began to strike as if there’s no such thing as a ‘ceasefire’ or ‘civilian evacuation,’” said media activist Mahmoud Raslan. “They’ve announced they are going to kill us all.”

YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN...

It was not clear whether the planes were Syrian or Russian. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group reported at least six people had been killed.

A legal adviser to the rebels accused Iran of foiling the Russia- and Turkey-brokered deal by imposing new conditions on the rebels. Along with Russia, Iran backs President Bashar Assad’s government and has committed advisers and elite Revolutionary Guard forces to the government’s war. Turkey backs the rebels fighting to topple Assad.

Osama Abo Zaid, the adviser, said Iran was imposing new conditions for the truce, demanding the remains of Iranians killed in Aleppo be returned and that Iranian hostages held in rebel-controlled Idlib province be released. He said the conditions were “exclusively sectarian and crippling.”

The Syrian government, meanwhile, withdrew its green-coloured buses from the evacuation point at the edge of the city of Aleppo’s opposition enclave. The Lebanese al-Manar TV, the media arm of the Lebanese militant Shiite group Hezbollah fighting alongside Assad’s forces, broadcast footage of the buses leaving the evacuation point empty and said government forces had resumed fighting with rebels in the city.

Mohammed Abu Jaafar, head of forensics in eastern Aleppo, said eastern Aleppo residents felt “duped.”

YOU MIGHT BE INTERESTED IN...

“People have left their shelters ... to be ready for the evacuation. I can’t describe it,” Abu Jaafar said. “Since the morning, they started to target the areas where people have gathered ... these people were walking to the crossings designated for exit.”

Activists in eastern Aleppo blamed the violence on pro-government forces, saying they shot first. Raslan said he was reporting for a Turkish agency when a rocket crashed nearby at around 10:15 a.m. He shared an audio recording of the explosion with The Associated Press. He was unharmed.

The Russian Defence Ministry said in a statement that the rebels “resumed the hostilities” at dawn, trying to break through Syrian government positions to the north-west.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Syrian government and its allies of trying to scuttle the deal. “We see now that the regime and other groups are trying to obstruct this (deal),” he said in remarks quoted by the state-run Anadolu Agency. “This includes Russia, Iran, forces supported by Iran and the regime.”

The surrender of Aleppo’s remaining opposition-run neighbourhoods to government control would be a turning point in Syria’s civil war.

The last-minute deal was mediated by Ankara and Moscow as the rebel enclave rapidly dissolved and ceded more and more territory in the face of the brutal advance by Syrian forces, backed by Russia and assisted by Shiite militias from Lebanon, Iraq and Afghanistan.

Get more of the Star in your inbox Never miss the latest news from the Star. Sign up for our newsletters to get today's top stories, your favourite columnists and lots more in your inbox Sign Up Now

Late on Tuesday, the UN envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, called for immediate access to the former rebel enclave to confirm the end of military operations and to oversee the safe departure of tens of thousands of civilians and opposition fighters. De Mistura was at the Security Council where an emergency meeting for Aleppo was held.

Earlier Wednesday, the pan-Arab al-Mayadeen TV broadcast footage of the government buses idling at the agreed-on evacuation point. The TV said the buses are prepared to move 5,000 fighters and their families to Atareb, an opposition-held town in the northwestern Aleppo countryside.

Brita Haj Hassan, a Syrian opposition official living in exile, said from Luxemburg that there were 800 sick and wounded people requiring immediate medical evacuation from eastern Aleppo. He said the U.N. and others had informed the opposition the evacuation had been delayed until Thursday but there was no comment from the Syrian government, the United Nations or aid groups on the ground.

The dramatic developments surrounding Aleppo — which would restore the remainder of what was once Syria’s largest city to Assad’s forces after months of heavy fighting and a crippling siege — followed reports of mass killings by government forces closing in on the final few blocks still held by the rebels.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the emergency meeting late Tuesday that he had received “credible reports” of civilians killed by pro-government forces as they swept into the last rebel areas in Aleppo.

Read more about:</s>BEIRUT – The Latest on the Syrian conflict (all times local):

Syrian rebels say an agreement has been reached with Russia for a cease-fire in Aleppo to evacuate remaining civilians and rebels from besieged districts.

Osama Abu Zayd, a legal adviser for an umbrella group of rebel factions known as the Free Syrian Army, says the cease-fire went into effect Tuesday evening.

He says the first batch will begin evacuating later Tuesday.

Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, confirmed the cease-fire and says the goal is to evacuate civilians and rebels from besieged areas.

There was no immediate comment from the Syrian government or Russia on the reports.

The U.N. Security Council has scheduled an emergency meeting on Aleppo, where Syrian government forces appear on the verge of seizing the city's last rebel enclave.

France's U.N. Ambassador Francois Delattre told reporters Tuesday that "war crimes and potentially crimes against humanity are committed on a daily basis in Aleppo," and that the council must try "to stop the bloodshed, to evacuate populations safely, to assist those in need."

The council scheduled a meeting at noon EST Tuesday at the request of France and the United States. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is scheduled to brief members.

Delattre said that "in these darkest hours for Aleppo it's never too late to do anything we can to save lives."

He said "the worst humanitarian tragedy of the 21st century is unfolding before our eyes" and warned that Aleppo may be "the harbinger of more disasters to come."

Dozens of Jordanians and Syrians have staged a protest against Russia's involvement in the Syrian government's push to retake rebel-held areas of the city of Aleppo.

Protesters gathered Tuesday outside the Russian embassy in the Jordanian capital, Amman, chanting against Russian President Vladimir Putin.

They shouted "Freedom forever, against your will, Putin" and raised banners reading "Putin is a killer."

Jordanian parliament member Dina Tahboub says she joined to protest to show "solidarity with our brothers being killed in cold blood in Syria, specifically in Aleppo."

Syrian government forces are on the verge of driving rebels from their remaining enclaves in the city, once Syria's largest. Thousands of civilians are believed to be trapped in Aleppo, amid U.N. reports of extra-judicial executions in the city.

The Russian military says Western criticism of the operation to retake rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo is hypocritical.

Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Tuesday that the militants had used over 100,000 residents of the city's eastern neighborhoods as human shields. He says civilians fleeing eastern Aleppo have recounted militant repression against anyone who attempted to leave.

Konashenkov said video reports showing the damage to civilian areas from purported Russian strikes had been staged by the militants.

He said Russian sappers inspecting schools and hospitals in eastern Aleppo found that all of them had been turned into militants' headquarters, ammunition depots and arms factories.

Konashenkov also accused Western powers and international organizations of failing to deliver humanitarian aid to eastern Aleppo.

Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, has charged Western nations with supporting "terrorists," the Syrian government's term for all those fighting against it.

Britain's House of Commons has debated emergency measures to help save thousands of civilians trapped in the Syrian city of Aleppo, with lawmakers backing action.

Conservative lawmaker Andrew Mitchell compared the situation to the mass slaying of civilians in the Bosnian city of Srebrenica, where more than 8,000 people, mainly men and boys, were killed in 1995.

Mitchell says that despite pledges to avoid similar events, "here we are today witnessing, complicit, in what is happening to tens of thousands of Syrians in Aleppo."

In an emergency debate in the House of Commons on Tuesday, Mitchell outlined a nightmarish scenario for civilians, and appealed for an organized evacuation under the U.N. flag for the wounded and those "caught up in this terrible catastrophe."

Amnesty International says a U.N. report that said scores of civilians were "extrajudicially executed" in Aleppo points to apparent war crimes.

The rights group made an "urgent plea" Tuesday for all parties to the conflict to protect the civilian population in the city, where government forces are on the verge of defeating rebels.

The group called the global inaction toward what is happening in Aleppo "shameful."

Earlier in the day, the U.N. human rights office said it has received reports that pro-government forces killed at least 82 civilians as they entered the last remaining rebel strongholds.

Lynn Maalouf, deputy director for research at Amnesty's Beirut office, says the reports that civilians, including children, "are being massacred in cold blood in their homes by Syrian government forces are deeply shocking but not unexpected."

Amnesty International called for all parties to the conflict to grant safe passage to civilians wishing to flee the fighting.

A U.N. humanitarian aid official says the past 24 hours have been the most dramatic so far in "the bloody, bitter, horrific battle of Aleppo," and warned that those responsible would be held accountable for the bloodshed.

Speaking to reporters in Oslo on Tuesday, Jan Egeland said he hopes the battle ends soon so that humanitarian work can begin.

Several unconfirmed reports of mass killings have emerged from Aleppo over the last 24 hours. The remaining rebel fighters, along with thousands of civilians, are trapped in a rapidly shrinking enclave surrounded by Syrian troops and allied militiamen.

It marks a major defeat for the rebels, who seized eastern Aleppo in 2012.

Egeland said it was important that "those who have orchestrated and organized this attack and this battle understand that they are accountable for what all of the forces do."

Russia says it is fed up with calls from the United States to halt the fighting in Aleppo, where government forces are on the verge of driving rebels from their last remaining enclave in the northern city.

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists Tuesday that "we are tired of hearing this whining from our American colleagues in the current administration that we need to immediately halt military action."

Lavrov said that while urging Russia to halt military action, the U.S. did nothing to separate moderate rebels from "terrorists" in Aleppo. He also criticized Western governments for what he said were "untrue" accusations that Russia was blocking aid convoys to Syria.

His remarks, made during a visit to Serbia, were carried by the Russian news agency Interfax.

Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad and has been carrying out airstrikes in support of his forces for more than a year.

The U.N. human rights chief says the "crushing of Aleppo" doesn't amount to the end of Syria's war and insists it could become more dangerous "if the international community continues to collectively wring its hands."

Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein on Tuesday decried the bloodshed in Aleppo, including "the wanton slaughter of men, women and children," and warned of a possible repeat in places like Douma, Raqqa and Idlib that are controlled by opposition fighters or the radical Islamic State group.

In a statement Tuesday, Zeid said international law requires that all people detained must be treated humanely. But he also called for "urgent measures" to help protect those who flee, "given the terrible record of arbitrary detention and torture in Syria even prior to the start of this conflict" nearly six years ago.

He said U.N. officials were documenting rights violations against the Syrian people "with the firm conviction that one day those who are responsible will be held to account."

The U.N.'s children's agency is warning that dozens of unaccompanied children are trapped in a building under fire in eastern Aleppo and is calling for their immediate evacuation from the rebel enclave.

UNICEF said in a statement on Tuesday that there could be more than 100 children trapped in the building in eastern Aleppo, according to reports from an unnamed doctor in the city.

UNICEF regional director, Geert Cappelaere, says it's "time for the world to stand up for the children of Aleppo and bring their living nightmare to an end."

Pro-government forces have launched a ferocious assault on Aleppo's few remaining opposition-held neighborhoods, trapping thousands of civilians under unrelenting heavy fire. There are unconfirmed reports that government forces are killing civilians.

Cappelaere says that UNICEF is "deeply concerned" over the unverified reports of the "extrajudicial killings of civilians, including children."

The U.N. humanitarian aid agency says its partners in Syria have recorded about 37,000 people who have fled eastern Aleppo amid the latest advance of pro-government forces, but that thousands of others have not been counted.

Spokesman Jens Laerke of OCHA on Tuesday decried the "complete meltdown of humanity" in Aleppo, and said that untold thousands are believed to remain behind in shrinking areas held by rebel fighters.

Laerke said in Geneva that his office has that "many civilians have not fled, and may be hiding whether they can."

He says the U.N. and its partners, including the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, are actively working to get "blanket access" across the city — not just in western Aleppo that has long been controlled by government forces and their allies.

French President Francois Hollande is pressing for Russia to facilitate humanitarian aid to civilians trapped in rebel-held parts of Aleppo.

Hollande said after meeting Germany's chancellor in Berlin on Tuesday that the Aleppo "humanitarian situation ... is unacceptable."

He says there are 120,000 people who are being "held hostage, there is no other word for it — who are victims of bombing, who are victims of repression."

Hollande says everything must be done to allow the population's evacuation and get aid in through protected corridors, and that Turkey and particularly Russia will be pressed on that.

He says that "without the Russians, there is no Syrian regime that can carry out operations" and that Russians "will be responsible for a situation that they helped create if they do nothing to allow access for humanitarian aid."

Hollande also says it's time to send "a humanitarian ultimatum" but didn't specify a time frame.

The U.N. human rights office says it has received reports of Syria's pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians as they entered the last remaining strongholds of the rebels in eastern Aleppo.

Spokesman Rupert Colville of the U.N. human rights office says the reports recount pro-government forces entering homes and killing some civilians "on the spot" in the former rebel enclave.

Colville spoke to reporters in Geneva on Tuesday.

He says 11 women and 13 children were among those reportedly killed in four neighborhoods of the increasingly-shrinking rebel enclave in the city of Aleppo.

Colville says the reports came in late the previous evening and that he doesn't know exactly when the killings took place.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is urging those fighting in Syria's Aleppo to do all they can to protect and spare civilian lives.

The ICRC says in a statement on Tuesday that thousands of people with no part in the violence "have literally nowhere safe to run."

The dramatic appeal came after Syrian military announced the previous day it gained control of 99 percent of the former opposition enclave in eastern Aleppo, signaling an impending end to the rebels' four-year hold over parts of the city.

ICRC says a deepening humanitarian catastrophe and further loss of life can be averted only if the basic rules of warfare — and of humanity — are applied.

Retaking Aleppo would be President Bashar Assad's biggest victory yet in the civil war.</s>(CNN) Aleppo residents will be allowed to leave on Thursday under a new ceasefire agreement reached overnight, a rebel group said.

According to Ahmad Qurah Ali, spokesman for the Ahrar al-Sham rebel group, the deal was reached late Wednesday and will permit injured people to be evacuated beginning in the morning.

The original ceasefire brokered Tuesday collapsed less than a day after it began.

Deaths were reported on both sides Wednesday, while some 50,000 civilians are thought to remain inside the small pocket of eastern Aleppo still under rebel control.

The brief ceasefire, which Turkey and Russia helped broker, aimed to begin evacuating rebels and civilians from the city Wednesday morning, but that didn't happen.

Turkey and activists on the ground accused the Syrian regime and other forces of heavy shelling and bombardment as world leaders demanded a new ceasefire deal.

Latest developments

Diplomats from Turkey, Russia and Iran will meet December 27 in Moscow to discuss the situation in Aleppo

UN human rights chief says resumed bombardment in Aleppo likely a war crime

US ambassador to United Nations says to other members: "You have a responsibility to denounce these atrocities"

Doctors in the city are "terrified and losing hope," Doctors Without Borders says

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan accuses Syrian regime of breaking ceasefire

Planned evacuations of civilians at dawn Wednesday did not happen

Iranian President Hassan Rouhani called Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to congratulate him, state media say

Ceasefire a 'false hope'

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein said he was appalled by the ceasefire agreement's swift collapse.

"While the reasons for the breakdown in the ceasefire are disputed, the resumption of extremely heavy bombardment by the Syrian government forces and their allies on an area packed with civilians is almost certainly a violation of international law and most likely constitutes war crimes," he said in a statement Wednesday.

Speaking to CNN from Aleppo Wednesday night, ITV correspondent Dan Rivers described what he said was a "constant percussion of artillery tank-fire."

"We've seen rockets streaking behind us," he said.

Aref Al-Aref, a medic inside the zone, spoke to CNN over the phone Wednesday as the sounds of two explosions rang in the background.

"People were hopeful that they were leaving this hell. But it was a false hope," he said.

"We are now worried about leaving the house. If the regime decides to launch an air raid, a massacre will take place right away. The area we are left in is too small."

Syrians fleeing the restive Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood on Tuesday.

An Aleppo resident who spoke to CNN on condition of anonymity gave a harrowing account of the scene at a hospital in a rebel-controlled part of eastern Aleppo.

"I thought I walked into a slaughterhouse. There were dead bodies everywhere," the resident said. "There were many, many, wounded people. The doctors are not able to cope with the load anymore. They ran out of plasma and other medical supplies."

In rebel-held areas, food and supplies are running out, the resident said. "People are living on the very last remaining sacks of baking flour they have. They are using wood from furniture they take from the house to use for cooking. There is no more cooking gas."

The Syrian regime is on the brink of taking the whole city of Aleppo, having made sweeping gains in just over two weeks since its forces, backed by airstrikes, entered the enclave by ground.

As the situation in Aleppo changes rapidly, CNN will update the map with information from sources on the ground.

Rebel groups held eastern Aleppo for more than four years after the Arab Spring uprising, and a regime siege on the area had essentially cut it off from the outside world, sparking a humanitarian crisis there.

If the regime does take control of the key city, it would mark a turning point in the brutal five-year war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.

JUST WATCHED Why is Aleppo so important in Syria? Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Why is Aleppo so important in Syria? 01:28

'Why are you silent?'

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Wednesday accused the regime of breaking the truce.

"Turkey will not leave the people of Aleppo alone," he said, according to state-run news agency Anadolu.

"I call all parties and international society to respect the ceasefire, to support it. A humanitarian corridor should be open and innocent people should be able to leave with no obstacle and sabotage. People of Eastern Aleppo should leave safe and sound."

Erdogan and Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke about the ceasefire agreement on Wednesday, underscoring that it should be applied, violations should be avoided and the promised evacuations should occur, Turkey's official Anadolou news agency reported.

The top diplomats of Turkey, Russia and Iran are set to meet on December 27 in Moscow to discuss the situation in Aleppo, Turkey's official news agency Anadolu reported Wednesday, citing Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu. No further details were reported regarding the meeting or the agenda.

But diplomatic efforts so far have seemed to have little impact on the streets of Aleppo, where the situation Wednesday appeared increasingly grim.

A missile just fell on the roof of my building

Now the people who were waiting the buses have to run back for their lives again find shelter pic.twitter.com/WGGfc1BEdX — salah ashkar (@SalahAshkar) December 14, 2016

Aleppo Media Center activist Salah Ashkar told CNN earlier that shelling was ongoing in his neighborhood, and posted a video to Twitter showing walls in his building damaged and rubble all over the rooftop.

"A missile just fell on the roof of my building," he said in the video. "Now the people who were waiting (for) the buses have to run back for their lives again (to) find shelter."

Fatemah Alabed, the mother of a 7-year-old girl whose tweets from Aleppo have captured the world's attention, said intense bombing was taking place, asking: "Why are you silent? Why?"

Dear world, there's intense bombing right now. Why are you silent? Why? Why? Why? Fear is killing me & my kids. - Fatemah #Aleppo — Bana Alabed (@AlabedBana) December 14, 2016

Alabed also tweeted directly to Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu, saying they had hope Tuesday, "but what's happening now? Please help us now. No more time left."

Cavusoglu responded, saying "Keep your hope my sister. Turkey hears your call."

Keep your hope my sister. Turkey hears your call. We work hard to end the nightmare you and many children in Syria are going through. https://t.co/MMwe0QPteP — Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu (@MevlutCavusoglu) December 14, 2016

In Paris, the Eiffel Tower went dark Wednesday night as a gesture of solidarity with the people of Aleppo.

No evacuations Wednesday

As government forces were on the brink of taking all of Aleppo, a ceasefire originally was announced late Tuesday that was to see government troops, regime-aligned militia and rebel forces stand down on Wednesday.

JUST WATCHED Goodbye messages from Aleppo Replay More Videos ... MUST WATCH Goodbye messages from Aleppo 01:31

The first group of evacuees scheduled to leave was supposed to consist of 70 injured people and family members -- a total of 150 people. Buses waited to carry them out, but the ceasefire crumbled.

Syrian residents fleeing eastern Aleppo in fear on December 7.

An International Committee of the Red Cross official in Aleppo told CNN the organization "is ready to help the parties to this agreement in overseeing the evacuation of civilians."

He added that they are "on standby" in case a request is made to support in an evacuation.

World Vision has said it is ready in Syria and can help as many as 100,000 displaced people.</s>Syrian government forces were poised to retake control of Aleppo on Tuesday night after years of bombardment and a four-month siege in the rebel-held east of the city culminated in a ferocious offensive that crushed opposition resistance in its last urban stronghold.

Forces loyal to Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, killed at least 82 civilians, according to the United Nations officials, one of whom called the bloodshed “a complete meltdown of humanity”.

The rout of rebels from eastern Aleppo was followed by reports of atrocities and sparked a mass flight of civilians and insurgents in bitter weather. “The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes,” said UN spokesman Rupert Colville. “There could be many more.”

After days of incessant Syrian bombardment, supported by Russian air power and Iranian-backed militias, rebels said a ceasefire agreed with government forces was to begin late on Tuesday and would include the evacuation of combatants and civilians. Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, said the evacuation was only for fighters.

The deal, reportedly brokered with Turkish involvement, would signal Damascus’s biggest battlefield victory since an uprising against Assad’s rule set off a civil war – and in turn a regional proxy war – almost six years ago. The conflict has so far taken some 400,000 lives, displaced 11 million people and left much of Syria ravaged beyond all recognition.

Photographs, videos and eyewitness testimony emerging from eastern Aleppo showed a wasteland of flattened buildings, concrete rubble and pock-marked walls. Tens of thousands had lived in the besieged sector in recent weeks even after medical and rescue services had collapsed and food supplies had run dangerously low.

Four eastern Aleppo residents contacted by The Irish Times on Tuesday did not respond to messages. Mr Colville said the last rebel-held sliver of the city amounted to “a hellish corner” of less than a square kilometre, while Jens Laerke, a spokesman for the United Nations office co-ordinating emergency relief, called the events in Aleppo “a complete meltdown of humanity”.

The Syrian army denied carrying out killings or torture among those captured, and its main ally Russia said on Tuesday rebels had “kept over 100,000 people as human shields”.

At a meeting of the UN Security Council in New York, Mr Churkin said the Russian-based Syrian military operation would end “in the next few hours”. He said all militants, together with members of their families and the injured, were being allowed to leave the city, but denied that civilians were included in the deal as “nobody is going to harm the civilians”.

The US ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, told the council that the Syrian government and its allies Russia and Iran bore responsibility for killings of civilians in Aleppo.

Denouncing the inaction of the security council in the face of the slaughter, outgoing UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon said it had “collectively failed the people of Syria” by not fulfilling its responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security. “History will not easily absolve us,” he said.

The fall of Aleppo, pre-war Syria’s largest city, would leave the rebels with only the northern province of Idlib and a few isolated pockets of territory in Aleppo and Homs provinces and around the capital, Damascus. The rebel loss underlines the failure of US efforts to contain the carnage from Syria’s civil war and confirms the scale of the shift in momentum towards Damascus since the Russian military intervened at its side last year.

However, while the loss of Aleppo marks a major reversal for the rebels, including groups backed by the United States, Turkey and Gulf monarchies, as well as jihadist groups that the West does not support, the war will be far from over.

“The crushing of Aleppo, the immeasurably terrifying toll on its people, the bloodshed, the wanton slaughter of men, women and children, the destruction – and we are nowhere near the end of this cruel conflict,” UN high commissioner for human rights Zeid Ra’ad al-Hussein said.

As the bombardment of eastern Aleppo continued, meanwhile, the French government said it was “deeply concerned” about reports of a chemical attack in the eastern suburbs of the city of Hama on Monday.</s>Syrian pro-regime fighters wave from a truck as they pass civilians fleeing the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood in eastern Aleppo on Tuesday, December 13, as government troops continue their advance on rebel-controlled areas. The fall of Aleppo -- held by rebels for the past four years -- would be the opposition's worst defeat since Syria's conflict began in 2011, and leave the government in control of the country's five major cities.

A woman reacts as she evacuates the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood with her two children on December 13, after government forces took control of the area. UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon expressed alarm over "reports of atrocities against a large number of civilians, including women and children" in a statement.

Syrians in a government-held district of Aleppo celebrate on Monday, December 12, after rebel fighters retreated into a small pocket of the eastern part of the city in the face of new army advances.

Pro-government forces patrol the al-Saleheen neighborhood in eastern Aleppo on December 12 after retaking the area from rebels. The UN says it has received "deeply disturbing" reports of atrocities being committed against civilians in the neighborhood.

Rebels in southeastern Aleppo target government forces with anti-aircraft weaponry on December 12. Activists say anyone with links to the rebels who seized control of the enclave in 2012 is being hunted down.

Civilians flee the Sukkari neighborhood for more secure rebel-held areas in southeastern Aleppo on December 12. It's believed that tens of thousands of civilians are still cornered in the embattled areas of eastern Aleppo.

Pro-government forces patrol Aleppo's Sheikh Saeed district on December 12, after it was recaptured from rebel forces. The Syrian army initiated its operation in November to take back the remaining rebel-held areas of the city.

In this handout photo from the International Committee for the Red Cross, women displaced from eastern Aleppo gather at a shelter in the village of Jibreen, south of Aleppo, on December 12.

Smoke rises from the former rebel-held district of Bustan al-Qasr in Aleppo, on December 12, during the Syrian government's operation to take control of the city.

Civilians from eastern Aleppo stream into a government checkpoint at the al-Hawoz street roundabout on Saturday, December 10. Humanitarian volunteers in Aleppo have issued a desperate plea for help and safe passage for the estimated 100,000 civilians.

Rebel fighters take aim at pro-government positions in Aleppo on Friday, December 9. Rebel groups held eastern Aleppo for more than four years after the Arab Spring uprising and a Syrian regime siege on the area had essentially cut it off from the outside world, sparking a humanitarian crisis there.
Shelling breaks the ceasefire in Aleppo causing disruption to the evacuation of rebels and civilians.