Aleppo evacuations resume

- 50 children leave orphanage, some in critical shape: UN        
- Russia, Iran and Turkey to hold Aleppo talks today

Thousands of traumatised Syrians left the rebel enclave of Aleppo yesterday under a complex evacuation agreement that will see regime forces exert full control over the battered city.

Families had spent hours waiting in below-freezing temperatures, sheltering from the rain in bombed-out apartment blocks and waiting desperately for news on a new wave of departures.

The operations resumed yesterday, with around 5,000 people travelling in 75 buses out of Aleppo, said Ingy Sedky, spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross.

They crossed the front line headed for rebel-held territory elsewhere in northern Syria, after around 350 other people got out during the night.

"We will continue throughout the day -- and however long it takes -- to evacuate the thousands more who are still waiting," Sedky told AFP.

They were the first departures since Friday when the government suspended evacuations, insisting that people also be allowed to leave two northwestern villages under rebel siege.

A bus drives as a convoy of four buses with on board evacuees arrives at the Syrian government-controlled crossing of Ramoussa. Photo: AFP

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, around 500 people left in a dawn convoy out of Fuaa and Kafraya.

UN Security Council yesterday asked UN chief to urgently make security arrangements to allow UN officials, others to monitor civilians who remain in eastern Aleppo.

The council unanimously adopted a French-drafted resolution that marks the first show of unity in months among world powers grappling with the crisis in Syria.

The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) said nearly 50 children who were trapped in an orphanage in the rebel-held Syrian enclave of east Aleppo were evacuated, reports Reuters.

"This morning, all 47 children trapped in an orphanage in east Aleppo were evacuated to safety, with some in critical condition from injuries and dehydration," Geert Cappelaere, Unicef regional director, said in a statement.

Unicef and other agencies were also assisting in reunifying other children evacuated in the past few days with their families and giving them medical care and winter clothes, he said.

Iran's official news agency IRNA said the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran would meet in Moscow today to discuss the situation.

Russia said yesterday that the defence ministers from the three countries would also be meeting in Moscow today.

An AFP reporter visited a hospital where patients lay on floors with no food or water and with almost no heating.

A physiotherapist, Mahmud Zaazaa, said only "three doctors, a pharmacist and three nurses" remained in the rebel enclave.

An official said more than half of Aleppo's buildings had been destroyed or seriously damaged since the rebels overran the east in summer 2012.

UN envoy Staffan de Mistura estimated that as of Thursday around 40,000 civilians and perhaps as many as 5,000 opposition fighters remained in Aleppo's rebel enclave.