Desperation mounted on Sunday, December 18, among thousands of hunger-stricken Syrian civilians trapped in the rebel enclave in Aleppo after their evacuation was delayed by a disagreement over the fate of other besieged areas.
As international alarm grew over the plight of residents including women, children, the sick and wounded, the UN Security Council was to vote on whether to send observers to the battleground city.
Families have been sheltering during the night in freezing temperatures in bombed out apartment blocks in Aleppo's Al-Amiriyah district, the departure point for evacuations before they were halted.
Forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad have meanwhile consolidated their hold on the parts of Alepp they have seized.
Women pose for a picture at the entrance of the Carlton Hotel, in the government controlled area of Aleppo, Syria on December 17, 2016.
Syrians walk down a severely damaged street in the old city of Aleppo on December 17, 2016, as pro-government forces re-open roads that were barricaded to divide rebel and government-held areas.
A member of forces loyal to Syria's President Bashar al-Assad stands with a civilian on the rubble of the Carlton Hotel, in the government controlled area of Aleppo, Syria on December 17, 2016.
A child pushes a stroller while waiting with others to be evacuated from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo, Syria on December 16, 2016.
People wait to be evacuated from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo, Syria on December 16, 2016.
Children wait to be evacuated from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo, Syria on December 16, 2016.
Syrian children, evacuated from Aleppo, in a refugee camp near Idlib, Syria, Friday, Dec. 16, 2016. Turkey's Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu says 7,500 civilians have been evacuated from the Syrian city of Aleppo and that he has reached out to Tehran in a bid to keep the process on track.
An injured Syrian man who just arrived on the Syrian side of the Bab al-Hawa border crossing between Syria and Turkey waits outside a hospital on December 16, 2016. The Syrian government suspended the evacuation of the last rebel-held parts of Aleppo, but a military source denied a Russian statement that the operation was "complete."
A woman sits with her child reading the Koran while waiting to be evacuated with others from a rebel-held sector of eastern Aleppo, Syria December 17, 2016.