ICRC expects to evacuate 2,000 from Aleppo on Thursday

GENEVA (Reuters) – Close to 1,000 civilians and 26 wounded, including several children, were evacuated from east Aleppo on Thursday, in an operation the International Committee of the Red Cross expects to double by day’s end, a senior official told Reuters.

“Many more” rotations of the buses and ambulances would be needed in coming days, said Robert Mardini, ICRC regional director for the Near and Middle East, in an interview in his Geneva office after being briefed by ICRC delegation chief Marianne Gasser in Aleppo.

“This for us is the first step, it was a positive one,” Mardini told Reuters. “We were able so far to evacuate 26 wounded persons from east Aleppo and close to 1,000 civilians, who were transferred from east Aleppo to western rural Aleppo”.

(Reporting by Stephanie Nebehay, editing by Larry King)