The Syrian government and rebel groups swapped dozens of women prisoners and hostages, some of them with their children, in Hama province on Tuesday evening, a monitor and a rebel official said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based war monitor, said government representatives and rebels exchanged 112 people, including 24 children, in the rebel-held Qalaat al-Madiq town in rural Hama. Many had been detained for years.
About half the women were released from government prisons and then taken to opposition-held areas, the Observatory said.
In return, the others, along with three unidentified men, were set free by various rebel groups and shuttled to government-controlled areas along the coast.
