Saudi Arabia released on Saturday 183 prisoners affiliated with Yemen's rebel Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, and welcomed back 19 troops of Riyadh-led coalition during the second day of a UN-mediated prisoner exchange, a source told Sputnik
MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 15th April, 2023) Saudi Arabia released on Saturday 183 prisoners affiliated with Yemen's rebel Ansar Allah movement, also known as the Houthis, and welcomed back 19 troops of Riyadh-led coalition during the second day of a UN-mediated prisoner exchange, a source told Sputnik.
"A plane bound from Saudi Arabia landed with 125 prisoners from the Ansar Allah group who had been released by the Saudi authorities ... Two Red Cross planes brought 58 prisoners belonging to Ansar Allah to Sanaa (Yemen's capital) from Al Moha Airport in Taiz governorate in southwestern Yemen," a source in the Sanaa International Airport said.
Also on Saturday, a Red Cross plane left the airport of Sanaa with 19 prisoners from the Saudi-led coalition forces on board. Seventeen of them are Saudis, while the two others are Sudanese.
Under the UN-brokered deal, the Houthis and the UN-backed Yemeni government will exchange 887 prisoners of war over the course of three days, flying them across the divided Yemen and to Saudi Arabia.
A bloody civil war broke out in Yemen in late 2013. Houthi rebels overran the capital in 2014, forcing the government to retreat south, where a parallel administration was set up with the backing of Saudi Arabia. The war has exacted a heavy civilian toll and unleashed a humanitarian disaster on the impoverished Arab nation.
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.
