Yemen’s Houthi rebels and the Saudi-backed government have reached a new agreement to carry out a major prisoner exchange, a key humanitarian step as efforts to calm the conflict continue.
Abdulkader Hassan Yahya al-Multada, head of the Houthi National Prisoner Affairs Committee, said on Tuesday that the agreement includes the release of about 1,700 Houthi detainees, including seven Saudi nationals and 23 Sudanese, in exchange for 1,200 prisoners held by the other side.
Mohammed Al-Jabir, Saudi Ambassador to Yemen, said the agreement was signed under the supervision of the United Nations Special Envoy to Yemen and the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC). In a post on X, Al-Jabir said the agreement was an important confidence-building measure.
The UN special envoy’s office announced in a statement on Tuesday that the agreement was reached at the end of 12 days of talks in Muscat, Oman.
UN Special Envoy Hans Grundberg said the agreement was “a positive and meaningful step that is expected to alleviate the suffering of detainees and their families across Yemen.”
The prisoner exchange is one of the few areas in which Yemen’s warring sides have made tangible progress. The agreement reached Tuesday marks the largest prisoner exchange ever between the two parties. In October 2020, more than 1,000 prisoners were released after UN-backed talks in Switzerland. Another major exchange occurred in April 2023, when the ICRC facilitated the release and transfer of 973 conflict-related detainees.
Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when Houthi forces seized control of the capital Sanaa and ousted the internationally recognized government. The conflict escalated in 2015 with the intervention of the Saudi-led coalition. Despite years of fighting, the Houthis continue to control large parts of the country. A U.N.-brokered ceasefire signed in 2022 has since expired, but both parties have so far avoided a return to full-scale war, with humanitarian measures such as prisoner exchanges remaining a key means of dialogue.
According to a 2021 report from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the conflict has killed around 377,000 people, more than half of whom died from indirect causes related to the conflict, such as lack of food, water and medical care.
