DOHA (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 14th April, 2023) The first airplanes carrying prisoners of war have departed from airports in the north and south of Yemen within the UN-supervised prisoner exchange deal, sources in the Sanaa and Aden airports told Sputnik on Friday.
"A plane of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has departed from Sanaa, carrying detainees related to the Yemeni government," the source from the airport in Sanaa said.
The source in the Aden international airport told Sputnik that a "Yemeni airline plane" took off from the airport with 150 prisoners belonging to the Houthi movement on board.
The ICRC said that the humanitarian operation enabled the transfer of a total of 900 prisoners and confirmed that they were fit to travel.
"UPDATE: We've begun a multi-day humanitarian operation to transfer nearly 900 detainees held in relation to the conflict in #Yemen. Our team has assessed the health of the detainees and confirmed they are fit to travel," the ICRC tweeted.
The committee added that the prisoners would be flown to Yemeni and Saudi cities.
The prisoner exchange deal was reached between the Yemeni government and the rebel Houthis movement during talks in Switzerland in March. 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.
Yemeni Deputy Human Rights Minister Majid Fadaeel told Al Arabiya on Thursday that 249 Houthi prisoners would be swapped on the first day in exchange for Yemeni military officers, including a brother of the country's ex-president and ex-defense minister.
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 afterwards because of the Houthis' demand that the government allocate to them part of the revenue 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.
