Yemen government, Houthis swap hundreds of prisoners

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Updated 15 October 2020
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Yemen government, Houthis swap hundreds of prisoners

  • Pompeo thanks King Salman’s diplomatic efforts as two Americans freed
  • UN Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths and international aid workers expressed their happiness over the swap

AL-MUKALLA: The internationally recognized Yemeni government and the Iran-backed Houthis on Thursday swapped 484 prisoners, including 15 Saudis, two Americans and four Sudanese in the first phase of a deal to release hundreds of prisoners, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), government officials and residents said.

The released Saudis and Sudanese arrived later at the King Salman air base in Riyadh.

Mike Pompeo, US secretary of state, said in a statement: “Today, we join with all Americans in welcoming the release of two US citizens from Houthi custody in Yemen.

“My deepest condolences go out to the family of a third American who died while in captivity, but whose remains are being repatriated.”

He added: “I would like to thank Sultan Haitham bin Tariq of Oman, King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud and Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of Saudi Arabia for their diplomatic efforts. I also want to commend the tenacious diplomacy of our embassies in the region who helped facilitate this release.”

Pompeo added: “Today’s news is the latest affirmation that President Trump remains committed to bringing every American held hostage or wrongfully detained abroad back home. This administration will not rest until they are all reunited with their families.”

ICRC planes carrying hundreds of prisoners departed from Seiyun airport in the government-controlled province of Hadramout and landed at Sanaa airport. 

The freed prisoners are part of 1,081 prisoners who were set to be released under UN-brokered talks in Switzerland last month. The remaining prisoners would be transported on the same planes between Sanaa and Seiyun on Friday, officials said.  

The ICRC said on Twitter that the organization along with the Yemeni Red Crescent and the Saudi Red Crescent Authority completed on Thursday the transfer of 484 freed prisoners between Saudi Arabia, Sanaa and Seiyun.

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READ MORE: Arab coalition says Yemeni prisoner swap ‘positive’ step

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“This is an achievement. But the greater achievement will be when we empty Houthi prisons from all abductees. I hope this is the first step toward achieving all for all prisoner swap,” Majed Fadhail, deputy minister of human rights and a member of the government delegation in the talks, told Arab News. Thursday’s prisoner swap is the largest since the government and the Houthis signed the Stockholm Agreement in December 2018.

At Seiyun airport, dozens of government officials stood by the tarmac to greet the freed prisoners. Outside the airport, a large number of relatives waved the Yemeni flag before greeting their liberated relatives.

Speaking to Arab News from Seiyun airport, Entesar Saleh, a member of the Abductees' Mothers Association, a Yemeni civil society and human rights organization and a relative of a former abductee at Houthi prisons, said the organization’s long advocacy campaigns, pressure and protests have yielded freedom for a small number of prisoners, adding that the Houthis are still holding more than 3,000 abductees. “I cannot find words to describe my happiness today,” Entesar said.

Fadhail said that the government offered “major” concessions to convince the Houthis to include some abducted journalists to the list of freed government prisoners, adding that the Houthis strongly refused to free five journalists who were sentenced to death in April.

Abdullah Mansour, brother of journalist Tawfeq Mansour, told Arab News that he and his family were sad when they did not see him among the freed prisoners. “After long discussions and peace talks, only this small number of abductees are freed? This humanitarian issue has unfortunately become a bargaining chip,” he said, urging the international community and the Yemeni government to mount pressure on the Houthis until they release the remaining abductees.

Yemeni government officials expressed concerns that freed Houthi fighters might return to the battlefield. Separately, Najeeb Ghallab, undersecretary at Yemen’s Information Ministry and a political analyst, told Arab News that most of the freed abductees from Houthi prisoners are journalists, activists and businessmen who were kidnapped from their homes inside Houthi-controlled territories. “This is an important humanitarian achievement despite offering big concessions,” Ghallab said.

The UN Yemen envoy Martin Griffiths and international aid workers expressed their happiness over the swap: “Today’s release operation, led by the International Committee of the Red Cross, is another sign that peaceful dialogue can deliver. I congratulate the families who will soon be welcoming their long-awaited loved ones.”

Jan Egeland, secretary-general of the Norwegian Refugee Council, tweeted: “Wonderful news from Yemen. Prisoner exchanges will reduce suffering and increase hopes for reconciliation, confidence-building and peace where there now is only mistrust and violence. Good luck.”


Nearly 13,000 Syrians fled to Lebanon: report

Updated 5 min 52 sec ago
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Nearly 13,000 Syrians fled to Lebanon: report

  • Violence erupted on Syria’s coast — the heartland of former president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority — with attacks on security forces that were blamed on gunmen loyal to the toppled president

BEIRUT: Nearly 13,000 Syrians fled across the borders to Lebanon since sectarian massacres on the Syrian coast earlier this month, Lebanese authorities said on Tuesday.

A report from Lebanon’s Disaster Risk Management Unit said 12,798 Syrians had arrived and settled in 23 different villages and towns in Lebanon’s northern Akkar region, adding that most were living in family homes or makeshift accommodation centers.

Violence erupted on Syria’s coast — the heartland of former president Bashar Assad’s Alawite minority — with attacks on security forces that were blamed on gunmen loyal to the toppled president.

According to the latest toll from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor, Syrian security forces and allied groups subsequently killed at least 1,557 civilians, the vast majority Alawites.

Thousands of coastal residents took refuge in Russia’s Hmeimim air base, calling for protection, while others fled south to neighboring Lebanon.


Israel is ramping up annexation of West Bank, UN rights chief says

Updated 10 min 34 sec ago
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Israel is ramping up annexation of West Bank, UN rights chief says

  • ‘The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime’

GENEVA: Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the State of Israel, in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said in a report on Tuesday.

The report, based on research between Nov. 1, 2023, and Oct. 31, 2024, said there had been a “significant” expansion of Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and cited reports by Israeli NGOs of tens of thousands of planned housing units in new or existing settlements.

The findings will be presented to the UN Human Rights Council this month and come amid growing fears of annexation among Palestinians, as US policy shifts under President Donald Trump and new settler outposts are put down in areas of the West Bank seen as part of a future Palestinian state.

“The transfer by Israel of parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies amounts to a war crime,” UN High Commissioner Volker Turk said in a statement accompanying the report, urging the international community to take meaningful action.

“Israel must immediately and completely cease all settlement activities and evacuate all settlers, stop the forcible transfer of the Palestinian population, and prevent and punish attacks by its security forces and settlers,” he said.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live among 2.7 million Palestinians in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, land Israel captured in 1967. Most countries consider Israel’s settlements on territory seized in war to be illegal. 

Israel’s military says it is conducting counter-terrorism operations in the West Bank and targeting suspected militants.

Plans for the further provision of Israeli government services in these settlements “further institutionalize(s) long-standing patterns of systematic discrimination, segregation, oppression, domination, violence and other inhumane acts against the Palestinian people,” the report said.


War monitor says Israel strikes central Syria military site

Updated 24 min 51 sec ago
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War monitor says Israel strikes central Syria military site

  • According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “Israeli air strikes targeted a missile battalion” near Homs city
  • Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites since December

BEIRUT: A Syrian Arab Republic war monitor said Israeli jets struck a military site in central Syria on Tuesday, the latest such attack in recent days.
According to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, “Israeli air strikes targeted a missile battalion” near Homs city, reporting explosions in the area with no immediate word of casualties.
Israel has launched hundreds of strikes on military sites in Syria since the December overthrow of president Bashar Assad, saying it was acting to prevent weapons from falling into the hands of the new authorities whom it considers jihadists.
On Monday Israel struck the area of the southern city of Daraa, killing three civilians according to the authorities.
Last week, an Israeli air strike on Damascus hit a “command center” of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad group, the military said. The Observatory reported one fatality.
In addition to the air strikes, since Assad’s fall, Israel has also deployed troops to a UN-patrolled buffer zone on the strategic Golan Heights and called for the complete demilitarization of southern Syria, near its territory.


Presidents of Congo and Rwanda meet in Qatar to discuss insurgency in eastern Congo

Updated 18 March 2025
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Presidents of Congo and Rwanda meet in Qatar to discuss insurgency in eastern Congo

  • Congo and Rwanda reaffirmed their commitment to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire on Tuesday
  • Peace talks between the two countries were unexpectedly canceled in December

DAKAR: The presidents of Congo and neighboring Rwanda met Tuesday in Qatar for their first direct talks since Rwanda-backed M23 rebels seized two major cities in mineral-rich eastern Congo earlier this year, the three governments said.
The meeting between Congo’s President Felix Tshisekedi and Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame to discuss the insurgency was mediated by Qatar, the three governments said in a joint statement.
The summit came as a previous attempt to bring Congo’s government and M23 leaders together for ceasefire negotiations on Tuesday failed. The rebels pulled out Monday after the European Union announced sanctions on rebel leaders.
Congo and Rwanda reaffirmed their commitment to an immediate and unconditional ceasefire during the meeting in Qatar on Tuesday.
Peace talks between Congo and Rwanda were unexpectedly canceled in December after Rwanda made the signing of a peace agreement conditional on a direct dialogue between Congo and the M23 rebels, which Congo refused at the time.
The conflict in eastern Congo escalated in January when the Rwanda-backed rebels advanced and seized the strategic city of Goma, followed by Bukavu in February.
M23 is one of about 100 armed groups that have been vying for a foothold in mineral-rich eastern Congo near the border with Rwanda, in a conflict that has created one of the world’s most significant humanitarian crises. More than 7 million people have been displaced.
The rebels are supported by about 4,000 troops from neighboring Rwanda, according to UN experts, and at times have vowed to march as far as Congo’s capital, Kinshasa, about 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles) to the east.
The UN Human Rights Council last month launched a commission to investigate atrocities, including allegations of rape and killing akin to “summary executions” by both sides.


Families urge Tunisia to release detained pro-migrant activists

Updated 18 March 2025
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Families urge Tunisia to release detained pro-migrant activists

  • Romdhane Ben Amor, the head of FTDES, an NGO, said the 10 detainees’ organizations “were engaged in humanitarian work, not political advocacy“
  • The authorities, however, “criminalized their actions“

TUNIS: The families of detained Tunisian pro-migrant and anti-racism activists, imprisoned since May, launched an appeal on Tuesday for their release.
Romdhane Ben Amor, the head of FTDES, an NGO, said the 10 detainees’ organizations “were engaged in humanitarian work, not political advocacy.”
The authorities, however, “criminalized their actions,” he said at a press conference.
The aim, Ben Amor said, was to “further weaken migrants and refugees and to push them to accept ‘voluntary returns’ organized by the (UN’s) International Organization for Migration.”
Tunisia is a major transit country for African migrants hoping to cross the Mediterranean to Europe in search of economic opportunities and a better life.
In 2023, Tunisian president Kais Saied denounced what he called “hordes of sub-Saharan migrants” who threatened to “change the country’s demographic composition.”
That was followed by a crackdown on migrants and last year’s arrest of activists.
Among those at the press conference was Emna Riahi, the mother of Sherifa Riahi, the former head of Terre d’Asile Tunisie.
She demanded that her daughter, a parent of two young children, be released and have a trial after charges against her of money laundering and terrorism were dropped.
Also present were the daughters of Mustapha Djemali, the 80-year-old founder of the Tunisian Council for Refugees and former North Africa chief for the UN’s refugee agency.
Yusra and Emna Djemali said their father had lost 35 kilogrammes (77 pounds) while in prison and had been denied medication “for four or five months.”
All these activists “are imprisoned to make it seem as though the president’s racist rhetoric was based on real facts,” said Ben Amor, lamenting what he called the “complicit silence” of the European Union and international organizations.