Population transfer stalls over prisoner exchange

Associated Press

BEIRUT

The second stage of a troubled population transfer in Syria stalled Thursday as rebel and government negotiators argued over the identities of the prisoners to be released as part of the exchange.

More than 3,000 people found themselves trapped at the handover point between the two sides on the outskirts of Aleppo city, where a car bomb Saturday killed more than 130 people, half of them children.

That blast, which remains unclaimed, rushed the two sides to complete the first stage of the transfers within the next day, but injected an element of terror into the chain of operations, which are expected to last for 60 days and see up to 30,000 Syrians moved across battle lines.

Critics of the arrangement, which was brokered by Qatar and Iran and involves four besieged areas, have decried it as a forcible transfer that is altering the country’s demographics along political and sectarian lines.

“Our mental state is very bad. There are fears that the deal is going to stall,” said Amer Burhan, a medical worker from Zabadani, who is trapped at the exchange point.

Some 3,000 residents of two pro-government villages, Foua and Kfarya, left Wednesday in 45 buses bound for government-controlled Aleppo. Another 11 buses carrying some 500 people, including opposition fighters, left Madaya and Zabadani, near Damascus, heading toward the northern rebel-held Idlib province.