Yemen’s Ansarullah, ousted regime agree to release 2,900 detainees in largest prisoner swap

Yemen’s Ansarullah-run government based in Sana’a and the ousted Saudi-backed regime have reached an agreement to release 2,900 detainees, marking the largest prisoner exchange in the Arab country’s 11-year war. 

The deal was signed in the Omani capital, Muscat, under the supervision of the Office of the United Nations Special Envoy for Yemen and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), as announced by Saudi and Ansarullah officials on Tuesday. 

According to Saudi Ambassador to Yemen Mohammed bin Saeed al-Jaber, the agreement is a significant humanitarian step that will enable detainees to reunite with their families, serving as a crucial confidence-building measure between the two sides.

“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,” he said in a statement on X on Tuesday.

Abdul Qader al-Murtada, head of the National Committee for Prisoner Affairs, also stated that the agreement involves the release of Yemeni detainees as well as seven Saudi and 23 Sudanese nationals.

Mohammed Abdulsalam, the Ansarullah spokesman, confirmed that Saudi and Sudanese prisoners are included in the deal.

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg welcomed the agreement, calling it “a positive and meaningful step” that could ease the suffering of detainees and their families across the country.

Saudis among prisoners released in landmark exchange with Yemen

Scores of prisoners of war, including Saudis, have been freed as part of a cross-border exchange between a Saudi-led military coalition and Yemen

The deal follows a 12-day round of talks in Oman and marks the 10th meeting held to push the parties to fulfill commitments made under the 2018 Stockholm Agreement, which called for the release of all conflict-related detainees.

Christine Cipolla, the ICRC’s head of delegation in Yemen, said the organization was ready to implement the agreement.

“We are 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,” she said. 

The ICRC has previously facilitated major exchanges between the warring parties, including the release of more than 1,000 detainees in October 2020 and over 800 prisoners in 2023, under the Stockholm framework.

In 2014, the people of Yemen led a popular uprising against the Saudi-backed unpopular regime of Abdrabbuh Mansur Hadi. As protests gripped the country, the Ansarallah resistance movement took control of the capital Sana’a on September 21 following a rapid advance south from their northern stronghold of Saada.

In a bid to crush the resistance and reinstall the Hadi regime, Saudi Arabia and its allies launched a devastating military campaign on the neighboring Arab country in March 2015.

The war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turned the entire country into the site of what the United Nations had described as one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.ir