Bomb in Syria’s Aleppo kills six — state TV

DAMASCUS — A bomb killed six people and wounded more than 30 in Syria's second city Aleppo on Wednesday, state television reported, without giving the reason for the blast. 

State television did not specify whether it was the result of an attack or unexploded ordnance left over from the four-and-a-half years of fighting that preceded the rebel pullout from Aleppo.

The explosion hit the southwestern neighbourhood of Salaheddin, which was once on the frontline between rebels and government forces before the army retook full control of the city in December. 

"Thirty-two wounded people were transferred to the Aleppo University hospital, including two to the special care unit," Hashim Shalash, who heads Aleppo's forensic medicine unit, told AFP. 

He was unable to confirm the death toll.

Eyewitnesses said they heard a blast during a funeral procession for a member of a pro-government militia in Aleppo. 

Once Syria's commercial hub, Aleppo was devastated by the fighting, particularly along the frontline that separated the rebel-held east from the government-held west.

The explosion came as a complex evacuation deal was being carried out a few kilometres away in Rashidin, a southwestern suburb of the city. 

A large convoy of buses carrying evacuees from the government-held towns of Fuaa and Kafraya reached the edge of the rebel-held transit point on Wednesday morning. 

The evacuations had been suspended after a weekend bombing in Rashidin killed 126 people, 68 of them children.