BEIRUT: The evacuation of Syrian civilians and fighters from four besieged towns, part of a mediated swap deal between the warring sides, ended on Friday after a 48-hour halt, state media and a rebel official said.
Busloads of civilians and pro-government fighters from the towns of al Foua and Kefraya arrived in army-held Aleppo after waiting for two days at the city’s outskirts, a war monitoring group said.
Thousands of evacuees from the two rebel-besieged towns had been stuck at a staging area outside Aleppo, where a bomb attack on an evacuation convoy killed scores of people last week. In exchange, hundreds of rebels and their relatives from Zabadani left a second nearby transit point for rebel territory, state television said.
The towns of Zabadani and Madaya, which had long been under siege by pro-government forces near Damascus, came under state rule this week after rebels and civilians were evacuated.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said the 48-hour suspension was due to rebel demands for the government to free 750 prisoners under the deal.
Rebels reached an agreement on Friday with the Syrian government for it to release 500 prisoners who will then cross into rebel territory as part of the evacuation deal, a rebel official said.
Mohamad Abu Zeid, a spokesman for the Ahrar al Sham faction, said negotiations over the issue had concluded and that the prisoners would arrive at a rebel-held area outside Aleppo city “within hours”.
The Syrian army could not immediately be reached for comment.
A senior Arab diplomat in Qatar involved in the negotiations said that Iranian officials and Ahrar al Sham held discussions about the overall four-towns swap in Qatar when Iran’s foreign minister visited Doha in March.
Those discussions also involved the freeing of 26 Qatari hostages held by unidentified gunmen in Iraq, he said.
During evacuations on Saturday, a bomb blast hit a packed convoy carrying evacuees from al Foua and Kefraya, killing at least 126 people, including more than 60 children, who were waiting on Aleppo’s outskirts.
Syrian President Bashar al Assad was cited as saying the ex-Nusra Front faction carried out the bombing, which no group has yet claimed responsibility for. — Reuters
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