Thousands of people are starting to return to formerly rebel-held east Aleppo despite freezing weather and destruction "beyond imagination," a top U.N. official told Reuters from the Syrian city.

Masaken Hanano was one of the first Aleppo neighborhoods to fall to rebels in 2012, and the first to be retaken by the Syrian government on its way to seizing back full control of the northern city last month – the biggest victory for President Bashar Assad in nearly six years of war.

As regime forces rapidly advanced after months of fierce Syrian and Russian airstrikes, some residents stayed put, tens of thousands fled of their own accord and around 35,000 fighters and civilians were evacuated in late December in convoys organized by the Syrian government.

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