The French News Agency quoted the International Committee of the Red Cross as saying that negotiations are taking place between the Yemeni government and the Houthi group over a prisoner exchange. A local exchange of prisoners took place in the western Taiz governorate that included 22 prisoners from both sides.

Franz Rauchenstein, head of the ICRC delegation in Sanaa, told the agency, in a statement, that he hoped that the exchange would take place in the coming days or weeks. The number of prisoners to be released and the timing of the operation were not announced. Ruchenstein added that the International Committee of the Cross "will of course be ready to implement the matter logistically and accompany the parties," explaining "but some agreements still have to be terminated."

In the 2018 Stockholm talks, the two parties agreed to exchange 15,000 prisoners, and lists of their names were handed over to the United Nations, and last February, representatives of the government and the Houthis in the Jordanian capital Amman, sponsored by the United Nations, agreed on a detailed plan to complete the first large exchange of prisoners and detainees since the beginning The conflict in Yemen in 2014, and provides for the exchange of 1,400 prisoners under UN supervision.

The implementation of the prisoner exchange agreement faces obstacles due to discrepancies between the two parties regarding the interpretation of a number of its clauses. And at the end of last month, Foreign Minister Muhammad al-Hadrami accused the Houthis of setting impossible conditions in a number of files related to the crisis, including the release of detainees and detainees, in reference to the amendments proposed by the Houthis to a United Nations initiative put forward by the organization's envoy Martin Griffiths last May.

The Griffiths initiative provides for a comprehensive solution to the conflict, including a total cease-fire, treatment of the humanitarian situation and exchange of prisoners. The Yemeni government has accused the Houthis of not being serious and obstructing the implementation of agreements and efforts to exchange prisoners.

With the help and success of God, today 13/12/1441 corresponding to 4/8/2020, liberation of 13 prisoners from the army prisoners and the people's committees from the Taiz front in a process of exchange through local understandings ..
We ask God to free the rest of the prisoners.

- Abdulqadir Al-Murtada (@abdulqadermortd) August 4, 2020


On the other hand, Taiz sources said that an exchange of the release of 22 prisoners was carried out in Taiz Governorate between the Houthis and government forces, and the head of the Houthi Prisoners Committee, Abdul Qadir Al-Murtada, said in a tweet to him on Twitter that 13 of the prisoners ’group were released, in An exchange via local understandings in Taiz. A source in the mediation committee said that the exchange process also resulted in the release of nine loyalists to the government.

It is noteworthy that Yemen is living for the sixth year a fierce multi-level war, which created one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world.