Local Editor
An Arab-led military coalition said Monday it had completed a prisoner swap in Yemen, exchanging nine Saudi prisoners for 109 Yemeni nationals ahead of a planned truce and peace talks aimed at ending the yearlong war with Houthi revolutionaries.
Last week the U.N. said the warring parties had agreed to a cessation of hostilities starting at midnight on April 10 and to peace talks in Kuwait on April 18, following two rounds of failed talks last year.
The prisoner swap coincided with fresh airstrikes by both the coalition and by U.S. warplanes on Islamist militants in southern Yemen.
The coalition did not say which group the swap was made with, but the Houthi Ansarullah movement said Sunday it had exchanged prisoners with its enemy Riyadh as a first step toward ending a humanitarian crisis prompted by the war.
The Houthis have been battling forces loyal to Yemen’s Saudi-backed former President Abed Rabbou Mansour Hadi since last March in a conflict that has cost more than 6,200 lives.
Yemeni media said the nine Saudis were soldiers. The freed Yemenis had been detained during operations in Yemen, SPA said.
News site Yemen Now published a photo of a group of smiling, waving men in white robes and keffiyeh headscarves, which it said was of the soldiers.
Andreas Krieg of the Department of Defense Studies at King’s College London said the prisoner swap is "a sign of Saudi goodwill" before the Kuwait negotiations.
It signals to the Houthis that Riyadh and its allies are "willing to make compromises to bring these talks to a successful end," said Krieg, who also teaches at the Qatari Armed Forces Staff College.
Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said "there is widespread hope that the upcoming Kuwait talks will function as a step in the right direction."
The coalition said Monday that border areas remained relatively calm. It said it hoped to see the lull "spread to combat zones in order to facilitate the sending of humanitarian aid to all of Yemen’s territory" and to support U.N. efforts to reach a political settlement.
In the chaos of Yemen’s war, a powerful Al-Qaeda affiliate has seized a large swath of territory across the country’s south and east, while an upstart Daesh (ISIS) branch has carried out a series of attacks.
Saudi Arabia began its deadly campaign against Yemen in late March 2015. The strikes were meant to undermine the Houthi Ansarullah movement and restore power to fugitive former president Abd Rabbu Mansour Hadi.
About 8,300 people have been killed and over 16,000 injured since Riyadh launched the airstrikes. The Saudi aggression has also taken a heavy toll on Yemen’s facilities and infrastructure.
Yemeni forces have been engaged in retaliatory attacks against the Saudi forces deployed in the country as well as targets inside Saudi Arabia.
Source: News Agencies, Edited by Website Team
