(2 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Aleppo, Syria – 2 June 2025
1. Woman kissing her freed relative on a bus carrying prisoners
2. Various of freed men leaving buses
3. Man hugging and kissing freed relative
4. Two men hugging
5. People gathered
6. Woman whose brother was not released or found screams and cries, UPSOUND (Arabic) "Bring me my brother! Ahmad al-Sharaa (Syria’s president), where are you on this? You’re releasing the prisoners, where are they? Where is my brother? No. No."
7. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Yasser Mohammed Hakim, freed prisoner:
"The prison that they put us in was a prison that had IS members and terrorists. They put us with the biggest IS leaders and the biggest terrorists. I told them I’m a civilian. I am a civilian who took the a wrong road. I lost six months of my life; 180 days — I died 180 times in them."
8. Various of people waiting for the prisoners with dance and music
9. Various of buses carrying the prisoners driving by
10. People walking to buses, with music playing
11. People by buses
12. Freed prisoners and family members gathered
13. SOUNDBITE (Arabic) Hassan Mahmoud al-Zain, freed prisoner:
"My happiness is priceless, all the money in the world couldn’t measure up to it. There’s nothing more beautiful than this happiness. The six months (in prison) felt like six years, each month felt like more than a year. I thank God."
14. Various drone shots of buses carrying prisoners lining up ++MUTE++
STORYLINE:
Syrian authorities and a Kurdish-led force exchanged Monday more than 400 prisoners as part of a deal reached earlier this year between the two sides.
The exchange in the northern city of Aleppo is a step in the process of confidence-building measures between the government in Damascus and the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
A similar exchange took place in April.
Mulham al-Akidi, the deputy governor of Aleppo province, said 470 prisoners were released by both sides adding that the exchange “aims to reduce tensions on the ground.”
He added that if there are more prisoners they will be released in the near future.
Yasser Mohammed Hakim said he was detained six months ago after he drove into an SDF-controlled area by mistake.
The man added that he was held in a jail where members of the Islamic State group are held in Syria.
“They put us with the biggest terrorists,” Hakim told The Associated Press after his release by the SDF.
“I am a civilian who took the wrong road. I lost six months of my life.”
In March, Syria’s interim government signed a deal with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, including a ceasefire and the merging of the main U.S.-backed force there into the Syrian army.
Since the deal was signed, the clashes between the SDF and the Syrian National Army, a coalition of Turkey-backed groups, almost stopped in northern Syria after months of fighting that left dozens killed or wounded on both sides.
Syria’s new rulers are struggling to exert their authority across the country and reach political settlements with different ethnic and religious groups in the war-torn nation.
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