Page 11 - ARUBA TODAY

A11
WORLD NEWS Friday 21 april 2017

Syrian population transfer stalls over prisoner exchange

deal, according to Yasser the names. reach as many besieged
Abdelatif, a spokesman of “They should release peo- Syrians this year as they did
one of the rebel factions in- ple like Rania Abbasi,” said over the same period last
volved in the exchange. al-Musa, referring to the year.
Rebels grew concerned Syrian dentist who activists Jan Egeland told reporters
the government was not say was taken with her hus- in Geneva that the front
planning to release politi- band and six children from lines have shifted but civil-
cal prisoners, after authori- their Damascus home in ian suffering has “remained
ties provided them with a 2013. the same” in 2017.
list of some of the names, They have not been heard Of nearly 5 million Syrians
said Fahd al-Musa, who from since. living in besieged or hard-
heads the activist-run Syr- The U.N.’s chief humanitar- to-reach areas, agencies
ian Commission for Releas- ian adviser for Syria mean- have only been able to
ing Detainees, which the while said aid agencies reach 564,000 this year to
rebels consulted to check have not been able to date, he said.q

Jan Egeland, Senior Advisor to the United Nations Special Envoy
for Syria speaks about the International Syria Support Group’s
Humanitarian Access Task Force at the European headquarters
of the United Nations, in Geneva, Switzerland, Thursday, April
20, 2017.
(Martial Trezzini/Keystone via AP)

PHILIP ISSA the country’s demograph-
Associated Press ics along political and sec-
BEIRUT (AP) — The sec- tarian lines.
ond stage of a troubled “Our mental state is very
population transfer in Syria bad. There are fears that
stalled on Thursday as rebel the deal is going to stall,”
and government negotia- said Amer Burhan, a medi-
tors argued over the iden- cal worker from Zabadani,
tities of the prisoners to be who is trapped at the ex-
released as part of the ex- change point.
change. Some 3,000 residents of
More than 3,000 people two pro-government vil-
found themselves trapped lages, Foua and Kfarya,
at the handover point be- left Wednesday in 45 buses
tween the two sides on bound for government-
the outskirts of Aleppo city, controlled Aleppo. Another
where a car bomb on Sat- 11 buses carrying some 500
urday killed more than 130 people, including opposi-
people, half of them chil- tion fighters, left Madaya
dren. and Zabadani, near Da-
That blast, which remains mascus, heading toward
unclaimed, rushed the the northern rebel-held
two sides to complete the Idlib province.
first stage of the transfers The Britain-based Syr-
within the next day, but in- ian Observatory for Human
jected an element of terror Rights monitoring group
into the chain of opera- also reported the trans-
tions, which are expected fer, which it says includes
to last for 60 days and see 800 armed men from both
up to 30,000 Syrians moved sides. Some 160, mostly
across battle lines. gunmen, had remained in
Critics of the arrange- Zabadani.
ment, which was brokered But the exchange has
by Qatar and Iran and in- been delayed over the
volves four besieged areas, identities of the 750 prison-
have decried it as a forc- ers who are supposed to
ible transfer that is altering be released as part of the