MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 08th April, 2023) The Houthi rebels (Ansar Allah movement) in Yemen have announced the postponement of a prisoner exchange with the government.
A prisoner exchange deal was reached between the Yemeni government and the Houthis in March, during talks in Switzerland.
"The International Committee of the Red Cross informed us that the start of the prisoner exchange deal was put off for three days because the side in Marib (the Yemeni army) is not ready to implement it," the head of the Houthis' prisoner affairs committee, Abdul Qader al-Murtada, said on Twitter.
According to Sputnik sources, the prisoner swap between the Houthi rebels and the Yemeni government was initially set to start on April 11 and was planned to be concluded in three stages, with the expected release of over 880 prisoners.
Earlier this month, a Yemeni diplomatic source told Sputnik that the Houthis and the Yemeni government had reached an agreement to extend the truce for six months. The previous truce expired in October 2022, but the parties were not able to reach an agreement on its extension immediately afterward because of the Houthis' demand that the government allocate to them part of the revenues from oil and gas sales from government-controlled territories.
Yemen has been engulfed in an armed conflict between the government forces and the Houthi rebels since 2014. The situation was exacerbated in March 2015, when the Saudi-led coalition, working in cooperation with the internationally-recognized Yemeni government, began conducting air, land and sea operations against the Houthis. The latter have retaliated by attacking Saudi forces and firing missiles into Saudi Arabia.
