A United Nations panel has determined that the forced evacuation of eastern Aleppo in December was a war crime, The Associated Press reports. The panel wrote that because the "warring parties agreed to the evacuation of eastern Aleppo for strategic reasons — and not for the security of civilians or imperative military necessity, which permit the displacement of thousands — the Aleppo evacuation agreement amounts to the war crime of forced displacement."
Over 1,000 people were bused out of the region. "Reporters described seeing people sleeping in the streets in freezing conditions with little or no food," the BBC wrote, as delays plagued evacuation plans. The buses entered Aleppo under the supervision of the international Red Cross and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent; Turkey and Russia brokered the ceasefire between the Syrian regime and rebels to allow for the evacuations to take place.
The U.N.'s panel, the Commission of Inquiry on Syria, also criticized "a particularly egregious attack" in September when Syrian warplanes targeted an aid convoy.