SANA’A (Dispatches) – The Red Cross said Wednesday that it had conducted rare visits to thousands of prisoners on both sides of Yemen’s eight-year Saudi-led war, a step that could pave the way for an exchange of detainees between the parties.
Fabrizio Carboni, the International Committee of the Red Cross’s director for the Middle East, told The Associated Press that members of the organization had seen more than 3,400 individuals in a 10-day visit to a facility in Saudi Arabia in December and a separate trip to Yemen’s capital, Sana’a, in October. Carboni was speaking in a Zoom call from Geneva, where he is based.
He said members of the organization had been allowed access to some of the most “secret and sensitive places” in each country, and will be able to inform many detainees’ loved ones of their whereabouts.
“It means the authorities accept our presence and what comes with our presence, which is the capacity to repeat the visits, the fact that we will inform the families,” Carboni said.
Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with its Arab allies and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and other Western states.
The objective was to reinstall the Riyadh-friendly regime of Abd Rabbuh Mansour Hadi and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of a functional government in Yemen.
While the Saudi-led coalition has failed to meet any of its objectives, the war has killed hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and spawned the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.
The last mass swap took place in 2020, and overseen by the Red Cross, saw more than 1,000 detainees returned home, in what was hailed as a significant step towards peace. According to a 2018 agreement in Stockholm, the warring sides agreed to swap over 15,000 prisoners, though it’s unclear how many have so far walked free.
Carboni said the prison visits would bolster “confidence-building measures” between the two sides of the conflict, but that it was also a sign of hope to those who remain jailed on either side of the war’s frontlines.
“We await the close of political negotiations toward the release, transfer and repatriation of all conflict-related detainees so they can be reunited with their families after years of separation,” the group said in a statement announcing the visits.