Around 40,000 evacuated from Aleppo

Over 40,000 people have been evacuated from besieged parts of eastern Aleppo since efforts to allow people to leave began last week, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yıldırım said Dec. 22, noting that the last batch of civilians was expected to be transported out of the city by the end of the day. 

"Up until today, around 40,000 civilians have been pulled from the fire and transferred to safe places," Yıldırım said in Ankara. 

"This has not been easy. Elements who did not want the war to end in the region and who turned this job [war] into a [business] sector have put in every effort to fire a bullet at peace," he said.

Convoys carried opposition fighters out of the last rebel pocket of Aleppo on Dec. 22 in the final phase of an evacuation clearing the way for Syria's army to retake the city.

The evacuation effort has been hampered in recent days by heavy snowfall and freezing temperatures - leaving evacuees waiting in unheated buses for hours - but aid workers said it appeared to be reaching its end.

"We expect today to be the last convoys; the operation will continue all day long and during the night," said Ingy Sedky, the spokeswoman in Syria for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

About 34,000 people have left the one-time opposition stronghold of east Aleppo since Dec. 15, including all of the wounded and sick in critical condition, according to the ICRC, which is assisting in the evacuation.

Rebel forces, who seized control of east Aleppo in 2012, agreed to withdraw from the bastion after a month-long army offensive that drove them from more than 90 percent of their former territory.

The agreement was brokered by Russia, a key ally of President Bashar al-Assad which launched air...