Besieged residents and rebels began leaving the Damascus suburb of Daraya as an evacuation to end one of the longest stand-offs in Syria’s five-year war began.

Air strikes believed to have been carried out by Russian warplanes killed scores of people in the centre of the rebel-held city of Idlib in northwest Syria, rescue workers and residents said.

Turkey’s prime minister accused Russia of attempted “ethnic cleansing” in the north of Syria, saying that Moscow was trying to drive out the local Turkmen and Sunni Muslims to protect its military interests.

Islamic State fighters drove Syrian government forces from a town in the west of the country yesterday, as fighting looked set to intensify despite a flurry of international diplomacy and talks between regional rivals.