Thousands evacuated from Aleppo after deal over besieged villages

• Gunmen burn buses, Aleppo convoy goes through
• Rebel officials say Aleppo evacuation plan back on track
• Syrian rebels prepare to withdraw from Aleppo as truce begins
• Syrian troops enter Aleppo's Old City, poised for war's biggest victory

In bitter winter weather, convoys of buses from eastern Aleppo reached rebel-held areas to the west of the city. More buses left the Shi'ite Muslim villages of al-Foua and Kefraya for government lines, according to a U.N. official and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group.

The foreign and defense ministers of Russia and Iran, President Bashar al-Assad's main supporters, and Turkey, which backs some large rebel groups, will meet in Moscow on Tuesday.

Evacuees from a rebel-held area of Aleppo arrive at insurgent-held al-Rashideen, Syria December 19, 2016. REUTERS/Ammar Abdullah

The talks, aimed at giving fresh impetus for a solution in Aleppo, will go ahead despite the killing of Russia's ambassador to Ankara by a gunman on Monday.

The United Nations Security Council agreed a resolution calling for U.N. officials and others to monitor evacuations from east Aleppo and the safety of civilians still there.

The Syrian ambassador to the United Nations, Bashar Ja'afari, denounced the resolution as propaganda, saying the last of the rebels were leaving and Aleppo would be "clean" by Monday evening.

U.N. Syria mediator Staffan de Mistura intends to convene peace talks in Geneva on Feb. 8, his office said.

The recapture of Aleppo is Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's biggest victory so far in the nearly six-year-old war, but the fighting is not over. Large parts of the country are still controlled by insurgent and Islamist groups.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said 20,000 civilians had been evacuated from Aleppo so far, but there were wide variations in estimates of how many people still sought to be taken out, from a few thousand up to tens of thousands.

“Thousands of people still want to be evacuated,” ICRC spokesman Krista Armstrong said of Aleppo.

An estimated total of 17,000 people have been evacuated from the enclave since Thursday, including 7,000 on Monday, she said.

“There are still 40 buses inside the enclave of east Aleppo with more people who are proceeding with evacuation. The operation is still ongoing,” she said.

Senior rebel official Zakaria Malahifji of the Aleppo-based Fastaqim group said "the process is supposed to continue" throughout the night.

Nearly 50 children, some critically injured, were rescued from eastern Aleppo, where they had been trapped in an orphanage, the United Nations said.

The evacuation of civilians from the two villages had been demanded by the Syrian army and its allies before they would allow fighters and civilians trapped in Aleppo to depart. The stand-off halted the Aleppo evacuation over the weekend.