Three injured people in eastern Aleppo waiting to be taken out of the city succumbed to their wounds as the Iranian militias continue to obstruct the evacuation deal. Medical teams said they are unable to help the injured and sick still trapped in eastern Aleppo, while the Iranian militias are preventing teams of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent and the Red Cross from entering the embattled city.
Activists in Aleppo said that an elderly man died at the Ramousah checkpoint where the Iranian and Hezbollah militias stopped a convoy of busses carrying around 4,000 civilians, dozens of them injured and sick. The convoy was held for several hours before being allowed to cross to the rebel-held Rashideen district in western Aleppo.
Eight people whose evacuation from Aleppo was delayed also died of their injuries while receiving treatment in hospitals in the province of Hatay in southern Turkey.
Turkish authorities said that 148 people with serious injuries, including 58 children, arrived at one of the hospitals in Hatay. They added that 13 people were discharged from a hospital after receiving treatment, while 64 others were transferred to various hospitals in Hatay province. Dozens of Turkish ambulances are currently on the Syrian-Turkish border waiting for a new wave of evacuees.
The evacuation of civilians from eastern Aleppo was resumed on the early hours of Tuesday. Eight buses carrying around 8,000 people left to western Aleppo earlier today, while another convoy is being prepared to evacuate another batch of civilians.
Nearly 50 buses carrying more than 4,500 people, dozens of them wounded and sick, left Aleppo to rebel-held areas in Idlib province on Monday.
President of the Syrian Coalition Anas Abdah on Friday sent a letter to 25 countries and organizations as well as to the UN Secretary General Ban-Ki moon urging them to take immediate, concrete action to ensure the safety of civilians trapped in Aleppo.
Abdah stressed that the evacuation of civilians from the besieged neighborhoods of Aleppo is an operation of enforced mass displacement, which constitutes a war crime under international humanitarian law. He said that the evacuation deal was accepted only to guarantee the safety of civilians.
The evacuation of residents in eastern Aleppo comes after a brutal three-month siege and ferocious bombing campaign by the Assad regime and its allies using internationally banned weapons. Regime forces and Iranian-backed foreign militias backed by Russian aerial cover have launched an all-out assault to retake eastern Aleppo from the FSA and rebel fighters since November 15. Over 1,500 people, including many women and children, have been killed and 7,000 others wounded as a result of the regime’s onslaught. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Office)
