Yemen rebels free 290 prisoners in move hailed by UN, ICRC

SANAA — Yemen's Houthi rebels have freed 290 prisoners, including dozens of survivors from a Saudi-led coalition strike on a detention centre earlier this month, the The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said Monday.

The ICRC hailed the move as "a positive step that will hopefully revive the release, transfer and repatriation of conflict-related detainees" under a deal struck last year between the rebels and Yemen's government.

The Houthis have recently announced the capture of hundreds of Yemeni loyalist forces in an August offensive near the Saudi border, but they were not among those freed on Monday.

The United Nations' special envoy for Yemen, Martin Griffiths, welcomed the initiative to "unilaterally release detainees".

"I hope this step will lead to further initiatives that will facilitate the exchange of all the conflict-related detainees as per the Stockholm Agreement," Griffiths said, referring to the 2018 accord.

He called on all parties to work together to speed up the release of prisoners, saying they and their families had "endured profound pain and suffering".

In a statement, he urged the parties to meet at the "nearest opportunity" to resume discussions on future exchanges.

The Houthis’ own announcement on the prisoner release said there were 350 in the group, including three Saudis.

“We have presented to the United Nations a unilateral initiative to release 350 prisoners,” Abdel Kader Mortaza, the Houthi official in charge of prisoner affairs, said at a press conference in Yemen’s rebel-held capital Sanaa.

Mortaza reiterated Houthi claims that they had taken prisoner more than 2,000 fighters, including Saudi soldiers, in the August offensive near the southern Saudi region of Najran.

Footage aired by the Houthis on Sunday, which had been billed as showing proof of the mass capture, was short on details.

Saudi-led coalition spokesman Turki Al Maliki on Monday brushed off the Houthi claims about prisoners, calling them part of a “misleading media campaign”.

A government source confirmed to AFP that 200 soldiers were killed in the fighting, but said that the number of prisoners taken was less than the Houthis claimed, estimating the number to be about 1,300 Yemeni soldiers.

Mortaza said the fighters were held in what he described as the rebels’ largest “operation to capture prisoners” and that they would be treated “humanely”.

However, he described Monday’s release of prisoners as designed to “break the deadlock that has prevailed for several months”.

“This initiative reasserts our seriousness and credibility when it comes to the implementation of the [Sweden] agreement,” Mortaza told AFP.

“We urge the United Nations and the International Committee of the Red Cross to press the other side into taking a similar step or give us the same number of their prisoners in any future deal.”

Tensions between Riyadh and Tehran have soared since the Iran-backed Houthis claimed responsibility for strikes on Saudi oil installations that knocked out half of the OPEC kingpin’s production.

The United States and Saudi Arabia blamed Iran for the strikes, which, they said, were carried out with advanced weaponry that was beyond the capability of the Yemeni rebels.

But in an interview aired on Sunday, Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman said war with Iran would devastate the global economy and he prefers a non-military solution.

“If the world does not take a strong and firm action to deter Iran, we will see further escalations that will threaten world interests,” he told the CBS programme “60 Minutes”.

“Oil supplies will be disrupted and oil prices will jump to unimaginably high numbers that we haven’t seen in our lifetimes.”