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Yemen – Riyadh reported this Monday, April 17, that it released these Yemeni citizens, who were imprisoned in its territory; in a unilateral and additional measure to the prisoner exchange that ended on Sunday, April 16. Saudi Arabia noted that the move is intended to support continued efforts to end the conflict in Yemen.
On three flights coordinated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC)104 Yemenis, who were imprisoned in Saudi Arabia, returned to their country.
The ICRC said the first two flights carried 96 of the newly freed from Saudi Arabia’s Abha International Airport to Sanaa, the Yemeni capital, in the hands of Iran-backed Houthi rebels.
Another flight carried eight remaining former prisoners from Abha to Aden, a port city controlled by forces allied to the Riyadh-led military coalition, which intervened in Yemen in 2015 after Iran-aligned Houthis ousted the government from the capital of the nation.
These releases were carried out unilaterally and outside the prisoner exchange between Riyadh and Yemen, which lasted three days and ended on Sunday, April 16.
After this exchange, 869 people returned to their homes and with the releases this Monday the figure rises to 973.
What is Saudi Arabia looking for with the releases?
According to Saudi authorities, the release of the final hours is intended to support efforts to end the nearly decade-long conflict on Yemeni soil.
It would be an important confidence-building measure amid talks to push forward a peace process between Saudi representatives and Houthi officials.
This decision follows the reestablishment of diplomatic ties between Riyadh and Tehran, last March, which had been severed since 2016. For years, the war in Yemen – which leaves thousands of people dead and has led millions of inhabitants to a situation of famine – has been widely seen as a proxy conflict between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The reason? Yemen’s civil war began in 2014 when the Houthis seized Sanaa and ousted the government, after which the foreign coalition intervened.
The alliance, which has sought to defeat the Houthis, was made up mainly of Sunni Arab states including Qatar, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Egypt and Jordan. There are also Morocco, Sudan and Senegal.
But at its core, the Yemeni conflict has pitted the two Middle Eastern powers against each other: Iran, which backs the Houthis, and Saudi Arabia, which leads the coalition in support of pro-government forces. However, the pro-government Yemeni camp has its own internal divisions.
Now, after the rapprochement between Riyadh and Tehran, there are hopes that a dialogue between the parties will prosper.
In fact, on April 9, a delegation of representatives from Saudi Arabia and Oman arrived in Sana’a to discuss with the leaders of the Houthi insurgency the possibility of launching a peace process to end the civil war. in the country, confirmed sources from the Supreme Political Council, the highest political body of the rebels.
“We have not seen such a serious opportunity to move towards ending the conflict in eight years. But the tide could yet turn unless the parties take bolder steps towards peace (…) Yemen is experiencing the longest period of relative calm yet in this ruinous war. However, this is not enough,” Hans Grundberg, the UN envoy for Yemen, qualified this Monday.
For now, the Houthis say that both sides will continue their talks after the Eid al-Fitr festival, also known as Eid al-Fitr, ends this week. Feast of the End of Fasting, which marks the end of the holy month of Islam, Ramadan.
With Reuters and AP
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