The lights of the Eiffel Tower in Paris were switched off on Wednesday to show support for the people of the shattered Syrian city of Aleppo.
Restoring full control over Aleppo, Syria's most populous city before the war, has been seen as critical to the fortunes of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in a multi-sided civil war now in its sixth year.
The evacuation of rebel-held eastern Aleppo was delayed on Wednesday (Dec 14) and, while a war monitor said the reason was unclear, an opposition official blamed Shi’ite militias allied to President Bashar al-Assad for the hold up.
Civilians and rebel fighters were to start evacuating from Syria's Aleppo "within hours" under a deal reached Tuesday that would end years of opposition resistance in the city.
During a dramatic emergency UN Security Council meeting on Syria, the Russian UN ambassador announced that the fighting has ended in eastern Aleppo and that the Syrian government was back in control.
The Syrian army and its allies are in the "last moments before declaring victory" in Aleppo, a Syrian military source said, after rebel defences collapsed on Monday, leaving insurgents in a tiny, heavily bombarded pocket of ground.
Syrian rebels have received a U.S.-backed proposal to leave Aleppo along with civilians under safe passage guaranteed by Russia, rebel officials said as government forces closed in on Sunday, but Moscow denied a deal had been reached.
The United Nations is "deeply concerned about the safety, protection and well-being of civilians" in Syria's Aleppo, particularly those still trapped in the besieged enclave of eastern Aleppo, including humanitarian workers, a UN spokesman told reporters here Wednesday.
Syria's army and allies pushed into rebel-held parts of Aleppo's Old City on Tuesday, a monitoring group said, looking closer than ever to achieving their most important victory of the five-year-old civil war by driving rebels out of their last urban stronghold.
Russia and China on Monday vetoed a UN Security Council resolution calling for a seven-day ceasefire in the embattled Syrian city of Aleppo.
Russia said Monday it would hold talks with Washington on a total rebel withdrawal from Syria's Aleppo, where the army has made sweeping advances, but opposition factions rejected any evacuation.
The rapid victories the Syrian army is achieving in the northern city of Aleppo and the possible quick retrieve of the city will be the Syrian government's biggest win in the five-year-old war, and the rebels worst defeat, analysts say.
Up to 16,000 civilians have fled strife-torn parts of eastern Aleppo as the rebels lost all of the northern neighbourhoods of their stronghold, the UN said Tuesday, describing the situation as "chilling".
The Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swath of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.
Syrian government forces have gained control of the northern section of the rebel-held areas in eastern Aleppo city in northern Syria, a monitor group reported on Monday.
Government forces have retaken a third of rebel-held territory in Aleppo, forcing nearly 10,000 civilians to flee as they pressed their offensive to retake Syria's second city.
Several thousand residents of rebel-held eastern Aleppo fled shifting frontlines, residents and a monitor said on Sunday, after a rapid advance by the Syrian army and allied forces that rebels fear could split their most important urban stronghold in two.