A Syrian activist group and a Lebanon-based TV station say that 10 buses with civilians from two Shia villages besieged by rebels in the country's north are on their way to government-controlled areas.
The evacuations from Foua and Kfarya were conditions that were added on to a cease-fire deal that paved way for the last rebels and civilians to depart from the remainder of the rebel enclave in the eastern half of the Syrian city of Aleppo.
The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and the pan-Arab Al-Mayadeen TV say the buses left Foua and Kfarya on Monday.
More than 2,000 sick and wounded people are supposed to leave the villages.
The evacuation came a day after militants burned six buses assigned to the villages' evacuations. The Observatory reported shortly before midnight Sunday that government forces allowed five buses to leave rebel-held parts of east Aleppo.
Meantime, the U.N. Security Council is expected to vote on a resolution aimed at immediately deploying U.N. monitors to eastern Aleppo, a move France says will be critical to prevent "mass atrocities" by Syrian forces, and especially militias, who captured the rebel stronghold.
The resolution, due to be put to a vote on Monday, comes as thousands more trapped Aleppo civilians and rebels await evacuation in freezing temperatures in the rebel enclave.
The text calls for the United Nations and other institutions to monitor the evacuations and demands that U.N. chief Ban Ki-moon urgently consult all parties on the immediate deployment of the monitors.
France and Russia, who submitted rival draft resolutions, struck a compromise text after more than three hours of closed-door consultations by the U.N. Security Council on Sunday.
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