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News > Yemen

Yemen's Warring Sides to Exchange Thousands of Prisoners

  • The Yemeni civil war started on March 26, 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a military campaign against the Houthis.

    The Yemeni civil war started on March 26, 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the UAE launched a military campaign against the Houthis. | Photo: Reuters

Published 16 February 2020
Opinion

Seen as a major step forward during the 2018 peace talks but never implemented, the prisoner swap deal would reunite thousands of families.

Yemen’s warring sides agreed to exchange thousands of prisoners at the start of critical peace talks sponsored by the United Nations (U.N.) and started Thursday morning in the locality of Rimbo, north of Sweden’s capital Stockholm. 

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The announcement was made Sunday by the U.N. which said in a statement that both sides decided to "immediately begin with exchanging the lists for the upcoming release" of prisoners.

“Today the parties showed us that even with the growing challenges on the ground, the confidence they have been building can still yield positive results,” U.N. Special Envoy Martin Griffiths said.

Seen as a major step forward during the 2018 peace talks but never implemented, the prisoner swap deal would reunite thousands of families, Griffiths said. The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) which co-chaired the discussions said more than 5,000 people would be liberated.

“During the coming days, we will have a critical opportunity to give momentum to the peace process,” the U.N. envoy added. 

The Houthis and the government of President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi agreed in 2018 to several confidence-building measures, including the prisoner exchange, the reopening of the airport in Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, and the U.N. administration of the strategic Red Sea port of Hodeidah, through which almost 80 percent of international aid enters the country.

The opening of the talks comes as the World Food Programme (WFP) said a survey of food security in Yemen found that more than 15 million people are in a “crisis” or “emergency” situation, with that number likely to increase if nothing is done. 

The survey also found about 65,000 in a food “catastrophe” or near-famine levels. That number that could rise to 237,000 if aid does not arrive, the WFP said.

Griffiths said he hopes this first phase of the talks could lead to a U.N. security council resolution for the implementation of a ceasefire, meaning the end of Saudi-led coalition airstrikes, while the Houthis would have to end missile strikes on the kingdom.

The endless Yemeni civil war started on March 26, 2015, when Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates led a coalition in a military campaign against the Houthis, to restore the Saudi-backed government of ousted Abd-Rabu Mansour Hadi. 

The conflict has killed more than 100,000 people, as well as an estimated 85,000 people who died as a result of famine. The UN said the country is facing the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

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