SANA’A (Dispatches) – Yemen’s Ansarullah movement and the Saudi-backed forces freed scores of prisoners Sunday on the last of a three day exchange of nearly 900 detainees, boosting hopes of ending their protracted war.
Planes carrying detainees took off at the same time from the capital of Sana’a and the northern city of Marib, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said.
“The first flight from Marib and the first flight from Sana’a have left,” ICRC media adviser Jessica Moussan told AFP.
“Forty eight former detainees were on board the Marib-Sana’a flight, and 42 on the Sana’a-Marib flight.”
Three other flights during the day were to complete the deal reached in Switzerland last month to exchange 181 mercenary forces for 706 resistance fighters.
Four journalists sentenced to death are part of the exchange, said negotiator Majed Fadail.
Mahdi al-Mashat, head of Yemen’s Supreme Political Council, said the next round of talks with Saudi Arabia would start after the Eid al-Fitr holiday, which is expected on April 21 and marks the end of the holy Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, Yemen’s official Saba news agency reported.
The last talks ended hours before 318 prisoners were transported on four flights on Friday between the southern Yemeni port city of Aden and Sana’a, reuniting detainees with their families.
On Saturday, 357 detainees took flights between the Saudi city of Abha and Sana’a. Saudis were among the prisoners freed. It is not known how many prisoners each side still has.
Saudi Arabia launched the bloody war against Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the U.S. and several Western states to reinstall Hadi, who resigned from the presidency in late 2014 and later fled to Riyadh amid a political conflict with the popular Ansarullah movement.
The war objective was also to crush the Ansarullah movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.
However, it has stopped well shy of all of its goals, despite killing tens of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.