Plans to evacuate besieged rebel districts of Aleppo were under threat on Wednesday as renewed air strikes and shelling rocked the city.
Iran, one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s main backers in the battle that has all but ended four years of rebel resistance in the city, imposed new conditions.
According to rebel and UN sources, they want the simultaneous evacuation of wounded from two villages besieged by rebel fighters.
There was no sign of that happening.
The British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said insurgents fired shells at the two majority Shi’ite villages, Foua and Kefraya, in Idlib province west of Aleppo, causing some casualties.
There was no immediate indication when the Aleppo evacuation might take place but a pro-opposition TV station said it could be delayed until Thursday.
A ceasefire brokered on Tuesday by Russia, Assad’s most powerful ally, and Turkey was intended to end years of fighting in the city, giving the Syrian leader his biggest victory in over five years of war.
But air strikes, shelling and gunfire erupted on Wednesday and Turkey accused government forces of breaking the truce.
Syrian state television said rebel shelling had killed six people.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov predicted, however, that rebel resistance would last no more than two or three days.
The defence ministry in Moscow said the rebels now controlled an enclave of only 2.5 square km.
Turkey was in contact with Iran, Russia and the U.S. to try and ensure the evacuation of civilians and rebel fighters from Aleppo.
Officials in the military alliance backing Assad could not be reached immediately for comment on why the evacuation, expected to start in the early hours of Wednesday, had stalled.
According to a report, nobody had left by dawn under the plan, where 20 buses stood with engines running but showed no sign of moving into rebel districts.
UN war crimes investigators said the Syrian government bore the main responsibility for preventing any attacks and reprisals in eastern Aleppo and that it must hold to account any troops or allied forces committing violations.
The Russian defence ministry said 6,000 civilians and 366 fighters had left rebel-held districts over the past 24 hours, in what appeared to be a separate development from the planned evacuation.
According to a media report, a total of 15,000 people, including 4,000 rebel fighters, wanted to leave Aleppo.