22 December, 2016
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said 60 buses were standing by to evacuate, but the buses were held up due to an undetermined, last-minute snag in the evacuation agreement, Voice of America reported.
More than 30 buses packed with people had waited overnight in freezing temperatures to leave Aleppo under a complex evacuation deal.
The departure from the villages had stalled on Sunday after militants burned six empty buses assigned to take the villagers out.
Among those evacuated to a rebel-held area west of the city was Bana al-Abed, a 7-year-old girl whose Twitter posts with her mother throughout the siege by government forces helped draw attention to the plight of civilians.
It entails the evacuation of 20,000 civilians and fighters from eastern Aleppo on Monday, and the rest on Tuesday.
He said the evacuation of east Aleppo should finish within "one or two days".
Control of Aleppo would be a major victory for Assad, and his main allies Iran and Russian Federation militarily backing him, against rebels who have defied him in Syria's most populous city for four years.
"The battle for Aleppo has ended with a victory for the regime of President Bashar al-Assad and Russian Federation", human rights activist Louay al-Halabi told ARA News at the time.
Syrians evacuated from the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo during the ceasefire arrive at a refugee camp in Rashidin, near Idlib, Syria, early Monday, Dec. 19, 2016.
An official said more than half of Aleppo's buildings and infrastructure have been badly damaged or destroyed since violence erupted there in 2012.
Aleppo's hospitals and doctors were regularly targeted by Syrian government forces as they sought to get rid of opposition fighters this year.
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, the document said.
Third and last part, about 1,500 people will leave from Foua and Kfarya, then another 1,500 people will be allowed to leave the two war-torn towns of Madaya and Zabadani, near the border of Lebanon.
Backed by Russia, Security Council voted to quickly deploy United Nations observers to Aleppo to monitor evacuations.
Photographs of people evacuated from Aleppo showed large groups of people standing or crouching with their belongings or loading sacks onto trucks before heading off to further destinations.
France's United Nations ambassador, Francois Delattre, said the goal of the resolution is to avoid "mass atrocities" by Syrian forces, and especially militias, in eastern Aleppo, which is now defenseless following the defeat of rebel forces.
