(The Telegraph)- After four long and bloody years and countless lives, the battle for the beleaguered city of Aleppo appeared to finally be over on Tuesday.
The rebels, who had fought fiercely for Syria’s second city since seizing control in 2012, in the end agreed to surrender in return for amnesty and the evacuation of remaining civilians.
Under a deal brokered by Russia, which backs the Bashar al-Assad regime, and Turkey, which supports the opposition, those left will be sent to rebel-held countryside outside Aleppo.
The first buses out were expected to leave tomorrow morning.
The situation had in recent weeks become a hell of earth. The United Nations described the scenes in Aleppo as "a complete meltdown of humanity".
In an impossibly small enclave, tens of thousands of tired and hungry residents had been squatting in abandoned and bombed-out buildings as the rain poured down.
All day White Helmets rescuer Ibrahim Abu al-Leith heard the cries of women and children from under the rubble of their flattened homes, with no-one able to reach them.
There were no longer any ambulances, working hospitals or medics in the one-square-mile pocket of east Aleppo to treat them even if they could.
“We hear their moans but we cannot save them because of the constant heavy shelling,’ said Leith. “The bodies of the dead are filling the streets.”
One-by-one each of the Telegraph’s contacts inside Aleppo has gone dark in recent days. Messages to their phones are no longer answered.
The hope is that they are safe in regime areas, but many had expressed fears before their disappearance that they would be punished for their rebellion.
Among those is seven-year-old Bana al-Abed and her family, whose fate is unknown.
Her mother had been afraid if they ended up in regime hands they would be arrested, tortured, or worse.
People’s fears of revenge attacks appeared to have become a reality. The UN reported that more than 80 civilians had been killed by pro-government forces in the last 48 hours.
Syrian troops and allied Iraqi militias had entered homes after recapturing them and had executed residents "on the spot".
"The reports we had are of people being shot in the street trying to flee and shot in their homes," said Rupert Colville, a spokesman for the UN human rights office. "We're filled with the deepest foreboding for those who remain in this last hellish corner."
Some 11 women and 13 children were killed in four different neighbourhoods. One family of eight was reportedly executed in their home in the Bustan al-Qasr neighbourhood after refusing to leave.
More than 6,000 men and boys have been reported missing since mid-November, after crossing from east Aleppo into the government-held western side of the city.
The brother of one, an NGO worker, told the Telegraph last week that he was taken away by secret service officers after his name was checked against a list.
The UN has pushed the Syrian government to allow monitoring of its treatment of fleeing civilians, including those detained.
Screening by Syrian government forces of people leaving the city must itself be monitored, Mr Colville urged.
"It needs international eyes on the situation if the fears of the worst kinds of things happening - summary executions, torture, etc - are to be allayed," he said.
Syrian government forces and allied militias have been pushing to retake the whole of of Aleppo for a month. Hundreds have been killed in shelling and bombing since the lightning offensive began.
But civilians had been living under siege, with little food or medical care, since August, when the army captured the last road out.
The residents had pleaded for foreign governments to intervene, and accused their allies of abandoning them to their fate.
“In other massacres and in other wars, like Srebrenica, they can perhaps claim they did not know,” said activist Monther Eatky. “They cannot claim that here. We have documented every war crime, every chemical attack. This was happening in real time in front of the eyes of the world.
“But still they did nothing.”
The US, which has spent the last five years calling for Assad’s removal, had been reduced to negotiating with Russia over how to evacuate the remaining civilians out of opposition territory.
The West's half-hearted approach to Syria's civil war - giving support to rebel forces, but never enough to beat the government or its Russian allies - was “an unmitigated failure,” Middle East analyst Peter Apps opined.
“Perhaps the US and UK should share the guilt for the horror that has come with it.”
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