Yemen's warring rivals discuss prisoner swap

UN Special Envoy for Yemen Hans Grundberg urged the warring parties in Yemen to fulfill their commitments and release prisoners and detainees as per the Stockholm Agreement.

“I hope the parties are ready to engage in serious and forthcoming discussions to agree on releasing as many detainees as possible,” Grundberg said on Saturday as representatives of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government and the Houthis kicked off talks in Geneva on the exchange of prisoners.

“With Ramadan approaching, I urge the parties to fulfill the commitments they made, not just to each other, but also to the thousands of Yemeni families who have been waiting to be reunited with their loved ones for far too long,” he added.

The Stockholm Agreement was reached in 2018 in Sweden between the internationally-recognized government and the Iran-backed Houthis.

In addition to stipulating a ceasefire in the port city of Hodeidah and the redeployment of forces there and in other areas, the agreement also stipulated “the release of all prisoners, detainees, missing persons, arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared persons, and those under house arrest, held in relation to the conflict in Yemen, without any exceptions or conditions.”

The new round of closed-door negotiations is overseen by the UN and the International Committee of the Red Cross and they’re expected to last for 11 days. In a statement to AFP, the ICRC noted that past meetings mediated by Grundberg’s office had “resulted in the release of prisoners on both sides.”

“In 2020, more than 1,050 detainees were released and provided with transportation to their region of origin or home country following an agreement reached by the sides,” it said.

The latest meeting comes almost a year after the Iran-backed militia said it had agreed to a prisoner swap that would see 1,400 rebels freed in exchange for 823 pro-government fighters - including 16 Saudis and three Sudanese nationals.

But the warring parties have since held a series of talks in the Jordanian capital Amman that did not result in any developments.

Yemen descended into civil war in 2014, when the Houthis descended from their northern stronghold and seized the capital, Sanaa, along with much of the country’s north.

Since then, a grinding war has killed hundreds of thousands and pushed the impoverished nation to the brink of famine. Fighting has largely been on hold since a UN-brokered ceasefire took effect in April last year, even after the agreement expired in October.