The UN said Friday security concerns had forced it to delay planned evacuations from Syria's Aleppo, as Russia extended a truce that was largely holding for a second day. Moscow said it was extending the unilateral "humanitarian pause" in the Syrian government's Russian-backed assault on opposition-held east Aleppo until 1600 GMT on Saturday. But there was no sign that civilians or rebels were heeding calls to leave, with Damascus and Moscow accusing opposition fighters of preventing evacuations.
East Aleppo, which the rebels captured in 2012, has been under siege by the army since mid-July and has faced devastating bombardment by the government and its ally Russia since the launch of an offensive to retake the whole city on September 22. Nearly 500 people have been killed, more than a quarter of them children, since the assault began. More than 2,000 civilians have been wounded.
The scale of the casualties has prompted outrage in the West, with Washington saying the bombardment amounted to a possible war crime. Russia announced a halt to its air strikes from Tuesday and the unilateral cease-fire from Thursday. The Syrian army says it has opened eight corridors across the front line for the more than 250,000 civilians in rebel-held areas to leave, but so far almost none have taken up the offer.
"There has been no movement in the corridors in the eastern district. For the moment, we haven't seen any movement of residents or fighters," said Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Syrian state media accused rebels of preventing people from leaving the city's opposition-held sector. And Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said fighters were using "threats, blackmail and brute force" to prevent civilians and rebels evacuating.
The United Nations had hoped to use the truce to evacuate injured people from Aleppo, and possibly deliver aid. But on Friday afternoon, a spokesman said the operation had been delayed because of security concerns. "Medical evacuations of sick and injured could unfortunately not begin this morning as planned because the necessary conditions were not in place," said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the United Nations humanitarian office OCHA.