Summary The operation came as Syria ally Russia warned it would veto a French-drafted resolution
ALEPPO, Syria (AFP) - Dozens of buses began entering the last rebel-held parts of Aleppo on Sunday to resume the evacuation of thousands of increasingly desperate trapped Syrian civilians and rebels.
The operation came as Syria ally Russia warned it would veto a French-drafted resolution at the Security Council on sending UN observers to Aleppo and submitted a counter draft resolution.
The evacuation was suspended on Friday, a day after convoys of people had begun leaving the rebel sector under a deal allowing the regime to take full control of the battleground city.
Buses began entering several districts on Sunday under the supervision of the Red Crescent and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) "to bring the remaining terrorists and their families out," state news agency SANA said, referring to the rebels.
A military source confirmed that a new deal had been reached and state television said 100 buses would take people out of the city.
The main obstacle to a resumption had been a dispute over how many people would be evacuated in parallel from two Shiite villages, Fuaa and Kafraya, under rebel siege in northwestern Syria.
A rebel representative said a new agreement had been reached allowing for evacuations in two phases from Aleppo, Fuaa and Kafraya as well as Zabadani and Madaya, two regime-besieged rebel towns in Damascus province.
Around two dozen gunmen attacked buses sent to evacuate people from Fuaa and Kafraya, but a senior military source said the incident should not disrupt the Aleppo evacuations.
By early evening in Aleppo, more than 30 buses were packed with people awaiting evacuation, while thousands more stood on the streets in the cold for their turn to board other buses, an AFP reporter said.
The UN Security Council was meeting to vote on the French draft resolution saying that "tens of thousands of besieged Aleppo inhabitants" are in need of aid and evacuation.
The measure would task Secretary General Ban Ki-moon with deploying UN staff to Aleppo to monitor evacuations and report on the protection of civilians who remain there.
"Our goal through this resolution is to avoid another Srebrenica in this phase immediately following the military operations," French Ambassador Francois Delattre told AFP, referring to a 1995 Bosnian war massacre.
But Russia warned it would use its veto to block the French proposal and presented a rival draft that requests that the UN make "arrangements" to monitor the situation, read the text seen by AFP.
The Russian draft did not specifically mention sending observers to Aleppo as the French requested.
"We believe quite simply that what they are proposing is unworkable and dangerous," Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said ahead of the meeting.
"We cannot allow it to pass because this is a disaster," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin s special envoy to Syria made a previously unannounced visit to Damascus ally Iran on Sunday for talks with top officials on the Syrian conflict.
The official Iranian news agency IRNA said the foreign ministers of Russia, Turkey and Iran would meet Tuesday in Moscow to discuss the conflict.
Families have been sheltering during the night in freezing temperatures in bombed out apartment blocks in Aleppo s Al-Amiriyah district, the departure point for evacuations before they were halted.
An AFP correspondent who visited a hospital in the rebel sector saw appalling conditions with patients lying on the floor without food or water and almost no heating.
Aleppo has seen some of the worst violence of the nearly six-year war that has killed more than 310,000 people.
An official in the city said more than half its buildings and infrastructure have been badly damaged or destroyed since violence erupted there in 2012.
"According to a preliminary assessment, the damage throughout the city is estimated at more than 50 percent," Aleppo administrator Nadeem Rahmoun said.
"This is an optimistic percentage of the damage."
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.
The ICRC appealed for safe passage for the civilians still trapped in the city, and said it was checking reports of shooting that forced a convoy on Friday to turn back to east Aleppo.
"People have suffered a lot. Please come to an agreement and help save thousands of lives," said Syria delegation head Marianne Gasser.
"We cannot abandon these people."
Before evacuations were suspended around 8,500 people, including some 3,000 fighters, left for rebel-held territory elsewhere in the north, said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
