The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a British-based opposition-aligned group, said government representatives and rebel officials exchanged 112 women in the rebel-held Qalaat al-Madiq town in rural Hama. Many were tossed into the calaboose for years.
About half were released from government prisons and then taken to opposition-held areas, the Observatory said.
In return, the others were set free by various rebel groups and shuttled to government-controlled areas along the coast.
Such exchanges were rare in the nearly six-year-old war, but had been occuring more often in recent months, the Observatory said.
The war pits
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneckal-Assad
Before going into the family business Pencilneck was an eye doctor. If he'd stuck with it he'd have had a good practice by now...
's government, backed by Russia and Iran, against an array of mostly Sunni rebel groups, including some backed by
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
, the United States and Gulf monarchies.
The conflict has killed hundreds of thousands of people, made more than half of Syrian homeless and created the world's worst refugee crisis.