Last group to be evacuated from Syria's Aleppo within hours
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BEIRUT- The evacuation of the last remaining civilians and fighters from a rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo will be completed in the coming hours, the Red Cross and state TV said Thursday, as more gunmen and civilians braved freezing temperatures to leave.
The evacuations were set in motion last week after Syria's opposition agreed to surrender its last footholds in eastern Aleppo. Since then, about 30,000 fighters and civilians have been bused out, according to the United Nations. On Wednesday, buses began evacuating the last group, an estimated 3,000 people.
The departures pave the way for President Bashar Assad to assume full control after more than four years of fighting over Syria's largest city. It marks his most significant victory since an uprising against his family's four-decade rule swept the country in 2011.
Ingy Sedky, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, said the few thousand remaining people will be evacuated in 40 buses and hundreds of private cars. She said another four buses will leave the besieged government-held villages of Foua and Kfarya in the northwestern Idlib province.
