Residents of Aleppo have left messages of defiance and anger for pro-government forces as civilians in the rebel-held city prepare to be taken to a border area.
Graffiti scrawled across bombed-out buildings and bullet-riddled shop fronts tell Assad’s government “our destroyed buildings are a testament to our resistance and your crimes”.
“One day we will return,” reads one message, which appears to have been written on a wall with marker pen.
Others denounce the “Russian occupation” while some appear to be love letters to those they lost or to their fallen city.
Images of the messages were shared on social media as attempts to ferry civilians remaining in Aleppo to a border area held by the opposition in Syria’s Idlib province were delayed.
The International Committee of the Red Cross says about 4,000 civilians were taken out of Aleppo on Thursday, while the Syrian state news agency says 2,300 opposition fighters and their families left the city the previous night.
The Associated Press reported Friday that thousands more were expected to leave Aleppo today under a cease-fire deal that effectively surrendered the last rebel-held part of the city to Syrian government control.
Translation: (Tweet) We’ll come back #Aleppo, we’ll come back...you flower for the needy.
(Photo) We’ll come back home
Translation: Goodbye mum.
Translation: (Tweet) We will return one day. When we grow up #Aleppo
(Photo) We will return one day.
Russia, a key ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad, says that more than 6,462 people, including more than 3,000 rebels and 301 wounded, have been taken out of Aleppo.
Latest reports from Aleppo suggest evacuations may have already been halted today, just hours after starting.
Syrian state TV said they had been suspended after rebels opened fire on a convoy at one of the crossing points of the rebel-held enclave.
It wasn’t immediately clear how long the suspension would last, AP reported.
The Syrian state TV also claims the rebels tried to take with them captives they had seized and were holding in the rebel enclave.
Lebanon’s Al-Manar Hezbollah TV says the Syrian army stopped the process because the rebels had violated the cease-fire deal.
Hezbollah militiamen are fighting in the Syrian civil war alongside Assad’s forces.
The Lebanon-based Al-Mayadeen TV says buses that were parked at the Ramouseh crossing point left the area after it was targeted by gunmen.