Yemen prisoner swap set to begin next week, says ICRC

Yemen’s prisoner exchange is expected to start by next week, a senior official from the International Committee of the Red Cross, who is overseeing the deal, told The National.

For nearly two weeks, talks between Yemen’s internationally-recognised government and Iran-backed Houthi rebels took place in Switzerland, led by Hans Grundberg, the UN’s envoy for Yemen, and the ICRC.

The deal clears the way for the release of 887 detainees from all sides by mid- to late April.

“We committed ourselves to try to make this release happen within three weeks of the signature. So by the end of next week, it should start happening,” Fabrizio Carboni, the ICRC’s Near and Middle East regional director, told The National.

He said a date is hard to set as he did not want to “raise expectations and then not meet the deadline”.

“Everybody is mobilised to make this release a success which takes place as soon as possible. So I can say that the ICRC is hopeful by the end of next week that movement will start to happen with this,” Mr Carboni said. The meeting in the Swiss city of Bern last week was the seventh aimed at finding a deal on prisoner exchanges initially agreed in Sweden five years ago.

Under that deal, the sides agreed “to release all prisoners, detainees, missing persons, arbitrarily detained and forcibly disappeared persons, and those under house arrest” held in connection with the conflict, “without any exceptions or conditions”.

The ICRC is handling the logistics, safety and transport side of the agreement.

“We agree that the people are going to be released to express the intention to go back home because often it means crossing the front line crossing the border. We need to also see if the detainees are in good health” and able to travel, Mr Carboni said.

He said some detainees “have reason to believe their physical integrity could be at risk”.

“I’m not saying that is the case here, but it is something we need to verify with the detainees.”

The humanitarian group must also make sure the planes have the approval to land and take off from specified locations.