Sources have told Rehab News that a Qatari plane carrying former Syrian detainees left Damascus International Airport Wednesday headed for Adana airport in Turkey.
The sources said the plane was carrying 35 detainees released from regime prisons as part of an exchange deal for a number of Lebanese kidnapped in the city of Azaz in the Aleppo countryside last year.
Smart news agency reported that 12 bodies of Syrian female detainees who had died under torture were also delivered to their families in both Damascus and Homs. Another 47 detainees were released from prison in Aleppo and arrived overland to Adana under the protection of the International Red Cross as part of the same exchange deal.
Smart said that regime forces refused to immediately hand over 20 detainees due to the deterioration of their health in prison, delaying their release for several days, according to assurances from the regime to the Qatari mediator.
It was also reported that 18 detainees with Arab nationality, most of them Palestinians, were included in the exchange deal and are still at Damascus International Airport waiting to leave Syria.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
......
