Last rebel-held areas in Aleppo fall to government forces

The last remaining rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo have fallen to the Russian-backed forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The announcement from Russian officials came just hours after rebel leaders said they had reached a cease-fire agreement to allow the evacuation in eastern Aleppo, ceding control of the city to the government.

The deal came amid reports of government forces committing mass killings of civilians as they closed in on the last areas under rebel control.

Osama Abu Zayd, a Turkey-based legal adviser to the Free Syrian Army, said the cease-fire went into effect Tuesday evening local time and the first batch of evacuees would leave within hours. Yasser al-Youssef, a spokesman for the Nour el-Din el-Zinki rebel group, confirmed the cease-fire.

World leaders and international aid agencies pleaded with the Russian-backed Syrian government to provide humanitarian relief to residents caught in the crossfire. The UN human rights office said it has received reports of pro-government forces killing at least 82 civilians in four neighborhoods, including 11 women and 13 children.

UN spokesman Rupert Colville said the reports recounted pro-government forces entering homes and killing some civilians “on the spot.” He told reporters in Geneva that the reports came in late Monday evening and he doesn’t know exactly when the killings took place.

Russia dismissed not only the reports of mass killings but also the humanitarian appeals by foreign governments.

“We are tired of hearing this whining from our American colleagues in the current administration that we need to immediately halt military action,” Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists during a visit to Serbia.

The Syrian military announced Monday it held 99 percent of the former rebel-held neighborhoods of Aleppo, signaling an impending end to the rebels’ four-year hold over parts of the city.

Retaking Aleppo is Assad’s biggest victory yet in the six-year civil war. But significant parts of Syria remain outside government control, and huge swaths of the country are a devastated wasteland. Islamic State (ISIS) retook control of the city of Palmyra over the weekend. More than a quarter of a million people have been killed since the conflict began in 2011 with peaceful protests against the Assad family’s four-decade rule.