Saudi-Led Coalition Aircraft Transports Yemeni Prisoners for First Time: Report

The coalition had earlier announced the decision to release 163 Yemeni prisoners as part of the UN-brokered truce between the two sides.

The return of the prisoners will be carried out in three stages and will be completed on Friday.

The move is part of terms to end the crisis in Yemen, achieve peace and pave the way for dialogue between the parties, the Saudi Press Agency earlier cited coalition spokesman Brig Gen Turki Al Malki as claiming.

The April 2 truce is the first nationwide ceasefire in the war-torn nation in almost seven years.

Its terms include allowing fuel imports into areas of Yemen that are controlled by Ansarullah and some flights operating from the airport in Sanaa.

The last major prisoner exchange, involving about 1,000 detainees, took place in 2020 as part of confidence-building steps agreed at previous peace talks held in 2018.

It comes as a Yemeni official said the Saudi-led coalition forces and their allied militant groups have breached a UN-brokered nationwide truce more than 5,000 times.

The official, who requested not to be named, told Yemen’s official Saba news agency on Thursday that the 5,365 violations included ground operations, infiltration attempts, air raids, overflights by Apache attack helicopters and reconnaissance drones, barrages of missiles and artillery rounds and shooting incidents.

He pointed out that the Riyadh-led military alliance either detains or delays the arrival of fuel ships destined for Yemen, and does not allow commercial flights to land at or depart from Sana'a International Airport.

Saudi Arabia launched the devastating war on Yemen in March 2015 in collaboration with a number of its allies and with arms and logistics support from the US and several Western states. The objective was to bring back to power a Riyadh-friendly regime and crush the popular Ansarullah resistance movement, which has been running state affairs in the absence of an effective government in Yemen.

Shortly after the onset of the war, the regime in Riyadh also triggered a tight blockade on Yemen, where the population is in dire need of basic supplies such as food and medicine.

The Saudi-led war has stopped well short of all of its goals, despite killing hundreds of thousands of Yemenis and turning the entire country into the scene of the world’s worst humanitarian crisis.

A ceasefire agreement between the Saudi Arabia-led coalition that has been invading and occupying the war-ravaged country since 2015 and Yemen’s popular Ansarullah resistance movement was mediated by the United Nations on April 2, but Riyadh has on multiple occasions violated the truce by bombing civilian areas across the impoverished country.

The war has created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, with millions suffering from widespread hunger.

The UN has issued warnings of a "worsening" humanitarian situation in Yemen but said the truce could help reverse the situation.