Evacuation process of rebels from Syria's Aleppo ongoing

Buses carrying the last batches of rebels and their families continued to leave the last remaining rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo city in northern Syria on Wednesday, state TV reported.

Altogether 21 buses, part of the 60 buses that entered on Tuesday, left through the Ramouseh crossing south of Aleppo toward the rebel-held town of Rashidien in the western countryside of the city on Wednesday, the report said.

Xinhua reporters were at the site on Wednesday evening, witnessing the presence of ambulances from the Red Cross and the Syrian Red Crescent, as well as Syrian and Russian soldiers at the inspection point, as each leaving bus get searched for weapons ahead of departure.

Aside from the buses, some rebels and their families left by their personal cars, some were riding pickup trucks.

The process for evacuating the last batch of rebels is expected to last through the night, amid the absence of government confirmation about the exact time of the end of evacuation.

The evacuation is part of a deal concluded recently between Russia and Turkey. It includes the evacuation of civilians from the Shiite towns of Kafraya and Foa, which are besieged by the rebels in the northwestern province of Idlib.

Nearly 15,000 rebels and their families have so been evacuated from eastern Aleppo since the operation started last Thursday.

The evacuation of the rebels from Aleppo and the civilians from the Shiite towns are designed to take place simultaneously, which explained the delay in the process.

The move comes as the Syrian military forces and allied fighters have captured 99 percent of eastern Aleppo, as part of a wide-scale offensive to drive out the militants from the city.

With the last evacuation of the rebels from eastern Aleppo, the Syrian army will be in control of the entire city, a victory seen as a new chapter of history, as President Bashar al-Assad recently said. Endit