Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said late Thursday that the Syrian army has suspended its military operations in the northwestern city of Aleppo.
Lavrov's remarks came on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Hamburg, Germany, according to Russian media outlets.
"Today, the operations in the eastern part of Aleppo were suspended for the evacuation of the civilians," Lavrov said. "This is the largest operation conducted for evacuation of the civilians until now. It's a convoy of 8,000 people, five kilometers long.”
Located approximately 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the Turkish border, Aleppo is Syria’s second largest city after the capital, Damascus.
Since mid-November, the regime on President Bashar al-Assad and its allies have stepped up attacks on opposition-held parts of Aleppo, reportedly causing hundreds of civilian deaths and thousands of injuries.
The fierce bombardments have forced most of the city’s hospitals to halt operations while most academic activities have been indefinitely suspended.