Yemen’s government and Houthi rebels announced plans for a mass prisoner swap, exchanging some 15,000 names, as United Nations-brokered talks on ending the country’s war entered their seventh day.
The government of Abd Rabbo Mansour Hadi and Yemen’s northern Houthi rebels are in Sweden for talks on a devastating conflict that has pushed 14 million people to the brink of famine.
The Houthi rebels announced on Tuesday, December 11 that the names of a total of 15,000 detainees and prisoners had been exchanged. A source in the government delegation said their side had released the names of 8,200 detainees but declined to comment on the combined total.
Both parties have two weeks to revise the list of names.
The Sweden talks are the first meeting between the two parties in the Yemen conflict, which pits the Iran-backed Houthis against the Hadi government, allied with a regional military coalition led by Saudi Arabia.
With reporting from AFP