UN delays evacuations

The UN said yesterday that security concerns had forced it to delay planned evacuations from Syria's Aleppo, despite a truce that was largely holding for a second day in the ravaged city.

The unilateral "humanitarian pause" in the Syrian government's Russia-backed assault on the opposition-held east of the city was intended to allow civilians and rebels to leave.

But there was no sign that either civilians or rebels were heeding calls to depart, with Damascus and Moscow accusing opposition fighters of preventing evacuations.

The truce was initially described as lasting just 11 hours, but Russia's defence ministry said yesterday that Moscow would extend the "humanitarian pause" in Aleppo until 1600 GMT today to allow civilians and armed rebels to leave the city.

East Aleppo, which the rebels captured in 2012, has been under siege by the army since mid-July and has faced devastating bombardment by the government and its ally Russia since the launch of an offensive to retake the whole city on September 22.

Nearly 500 people have been killed, more than a quarter of them children, since the assault began. More than 2,000 civilians have been wounded.

The scale of the casualties has prompted outrage in the West, with Washington saying the bombardment amounted to a possible war crime.

Russia announced a halt to its air strikes from Tuesday and the unilateral ceasefire from Thursday.

The Syrian army says it has opened eight corridors across the front line for the more than 250,000 civilians in rebel-held areas to leave but so far almost none have taken up the offer.

"There has been no movement in the corridors in the eastern district. For the moment, we haven't seen any movement of residents or fighters," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

An AFP correspondent on the government-held side of one crossing in the Bustan al-Qasr district also reported no movement early yesterday.

He said just eight people passed through on Thursday.