Last group to be evacuated from Syria's Aleppo within hours

Beirut: The International Committee of the Red Cross says the evacuation of the last remaining civilians and fighters from a rebel-held enclave in eastern Aleppo will be completed in the coming hours.

Spokeswoman Ingy Sedky says the few thousand remaining people will be evacuated on Thursday in 40 buses and hundreds of private cars. She says another four buses will leave the besieged government-held villages of Foua and Kfarya in the northwestern Idlib province.

Sedky says the operation will take place over multiple stages and be completed later on Thursday.

The evacuations were set in motion last week after Syria's opposition agreed to surrender its last footholds in eastern Aleppo. Since then, about 25,000 fighters and civilians have been bused out, according to the United Nations.