Yemen’s warring parties have agreed to exchange more than 1,000 prisoners during UN-sponsored talks in Switzerland.
Yemen’s internationally recognized government and Huthi rebels have agreed to exchange about 1,000 detainees and prisoners, including 15 Saidis, as part of a confidence-building measure aimed at reviving the stalled peace process, the United Nations said.
“I am personally delighted to announce that you have reached a very important goal,” UN Ambassador Martin Griffiths told reporters on Sunday.
The Yemeni government supports the Saudi-led military coalition and signed a deal to transfer about 15,000 detainees in 2018 by the Huthi movement, but the agreement has been implemented slowly and only partially.
After a nearly 10-day meeting of the prisoner exchange committee in the Swiss village of Upper Glian, the two countries will now release 1,081 detainees and prisoners, Griffith said at a joint news briefing with the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
Sources familiar with the negotiations and the Houthi-run Masirah TV said the movement would free 400 people, including 15 Saudis and four Sudanese, while the coalition would release 681 Houthi fighters in the largest retaliation since peace talks in Stockholm in December 2018.
“I urge the parties to proceed immediately with the release and to expedite this move to release more detainees,” Griffith said.
ICRC Middle East Director Fabrizio Carboni, sitting next to Griffiths, called on both parties to provide “security and logistical guarantees” for Swift’s release. The ICRC team will visit the released people and conduct a medical examination.
In a unilateral move last year, Houthis released 290 prisoners and Saudi Arabia released 128, while dozens of people were released in a locally mediated change in the Taiz governor. In January this year, the ICRC facilitated the release of the six suspects arrested by Houthis.
The latest negotiations, which began in Switzerland on September 18 at an undisclosed location, are aimed at agreeing to release 1,420 prisoners. He is also the brother of Yemeni President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
According to a member of the Yemeni government delegation, the release of General Nasser Mansour Hadi from the rebels has been “postponed”.
Yemen has been embroiled in a conflict since the Jews ousted an internationally recognized government in the capital, Sanaa, in late 2014, prompting the Saudi-led coalition to intervene in March 2015.
The conflict has killed thousands of people, most of them civilians, and the UN calls it the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.
The conflict is seen as a proxy war between rival Saudi Arabia and Iran in the region. Riyadh began informal negotiations for a ceasefire with Houthis late last year as it seeks to pull out of a costly war.
