According to the United Nations, Yemen’s internationally recognised government and the Houthi group have reached an agreement to free detainees.
In a statement, the UN Envoy on Yemen, Hans Grundberg said that the prisoner swap deal came after nearly two weeks of talks in Muscat, the capital of Oman, a mediator in the conflict between the government and the Houthis that began in 2014.
It will be the largest prisoner exchange between the Houthis and Yemen’s internationally recognized government since the start of the civil war in 2014.
The agreement came after the warring parties concluded a 12-day meeting in Oman. It was the 10th meeting held to push the parties to meet their commitments under the 2018 Stockholm Agreement to release all conflict-related detainees, the special envoy’s office said in a statement.
Officials from both sides put the number at thousands. Abdulqader al-Mortada, an official with the Houthi delegation in Muscat, said in a statement on X that “we signed an agreement today with the other party to implement a large-scale prisoner exchange deal involving 1,700 of our prisoners in exchange for 1,200 of theirs, including seven Saudis and 23 Sudanese.”
Majed Fadhail, a member of the government delegation, said that the new exchange would see “thousands” of war prisoners released. Fadhail told a news agency that two of the seven Saudi nationals are air force pilots.
Saudi Ambassador Mohamed AlJabir said in a statement that the agreement was signed under the supervision of the Office of the UN Special Envoy for Yemen and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), “which will enable all detainees to return to their families.”
“I commend the efforts of the negotiation teams from both sides who succeeded in reaching an understanding and concluding this agreement, which addresses a humanitarian issue and strengthens efforts to bring calm and build confidence in Yemen.”
Mohamed AlJabir
UN Welcomes Agreement Between Yemen Government And Houthis
Grundberg, the UN Envoy, welcomed the agreement as a “positive and meaningful step” and said that it would help to ease the suffering of detainees and their families across Yemen.
He added that its “effective implementation will require the continued engagement and cooperation of the parties, coordinated regional support and sustained efforts to build on this progress toward further releases.”
Christine Cipolla, the ICRC’s Head of delegation in Yemen, said that the organisation is “ready and determined to carry out the release, transfer and repatriation of detainees so that people separated from their families can be reunited in a safe and dignified manner.”
The ICRC played an intermediary role under the Stockholm Agreement, including carrying out the release, transfer and repatriation of more than 800 prisoners in 2023, and more than 1,000 detainees in October 2020.
The war in Yemen has been largely frozen since 2022, but tensions have risen in recent weeks as the separatist Southern Transitional Council made military advances in the country’s eastern governorates of Hadramout and al-Mahra.
Overall, the conflict has killed tens of thousands people and created one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters.
According to the UN, nearly 20 million people across Yemen depend on aid to survive, while close to five million remain displaced.
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