Syrian government allows UN to beef up monitoring in Aleppo: UN

[GENEVA] The Syrian government has authorised the United Nations to send an additional 20 staff to east Aleppo, where they will monitor the ongoing evacuation of thousands of people, a UN spokesman said on Tuesday.

"This will almost triple the number of international staff currently deployed to Aleppo," Jens Laerke told a news briefing in Geneva.

"The task is to monitor and observe the evacuations."

"We do not have independent UN access to the buses, so we are not able to enter and access people; that does not take away from the protection concerns that we do have and continue to have," he added.

Some 750 people have been evacuated from the two besieged Syrian villages of Foua and Kefraya so far, where 20 buses headed to early on Tuesday morning, Mr Laerke added.

REUTERS