SANAA (The Thursday Times) — The Houthis released 600 detainees in Sanaa on Sunday, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said, in a unilateral move the group’s prisoners committee called a humanitarian initiative.
ICRC delegates interviewed the detainees privately before their release and helped them return home. The organisation said it had no role in deciding who or how many people were freed. “The release was initiated by the National Committee for Prisoners Affairs and does not fall under the Stockholm Agreement,” it said. It added that it remains ready, if the parties ask, to act as a neutral intermediary for future releases, transfers, and repatriations of people detained in the Yemen conflict.
Abdul Qader al-Murtada, head of the Houthi committee, confirmed the release and said the group has now freed 2,612 prisoners unilaterally since the war began. The Yemeni government had not commented on the announcement.
A second release in a month
Last month the ICRC supported the release of 159 detainees in Sanaa, also initiated by the committee and also outside the Stockholm Agreement. That deal, agreed in December 2018, committed the government and the Houthis to exchange prisoners, when more than 15,000 people were held by the two sides.
The war began when the Houthis seized Sanaa in September 2014. A Saudi-led coalition intervened in March 2015 to back the internationally recognised government.
The releases come amid heavy fighting. Government forces have withdrawn from the Bab el-Mandeb area and redeployed to Aden, and a rights group says Houthi attacks killed 51 civilians in Taiz in 12 days.
