Last evacuees wait to leave Syrian city

The last residents hoping to leave rebel-held Aleppo waited in the snow yesterday as delays hit an evacuation that will leave Syria's army in full control of the devastated city.

An AFP correspondent in the government-held neighbourhood of Ramussa -- through which thousands of evacuees have passed in recent days -- saw no convoys leaving the last pocket of opposition-controlled Aleppo yesterday morning.

Heavy snow was blanketing the city and swirling through crumbled buildings, adding to the misery of thousands still inside the last pocket of what was once a crucial stronghold of Syrian rebel forces.

Workers in the red uniforms of the Syrian Red Crescent, which has been helping with the evacuations, huddled by the side of the road, their white ambulances parked nearby barely visible in the snow.

At least 25,000 people have left rebel districts of Aleppo since opposition fighters agreed last week to withdraw from the city after years of fighting, according to the International Committee of the Red Cross, which is overseeing the operation.

The retreat from Aleppo -- which had been divided into a rebel-held east and government-controlled west since 2012 -- marks the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad's forces in nearly six years of civil war.

It follows a month-long army offensive and weeks of siege that killed hundreds and left rebels with less than 10 percent of the territory they once controlled in the city.