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A spokeswoman for the Yemeni rebel group Houthi said that Saudi Arabia released more than a dozen Houthi prisoners ahead of a larger prisoner release that both sides agreed to.
Omani officials arrived in Sanaa, the capital of Yemen, on Saturday as part of foreign efforts to end the country’s years-long civil war.
Abdul-Qader el-Murtaza, a Houthi official in charge of prisoner swap talks in Yemen’s war, said on Twitter that 13 Houthi prisoners have arrived in Sanaa.
He said that the inmates were freed because the Houthis had already set free a Saudi prisoner. But he didn’t say when the Saudi prisoner was freed by the fighters.
The Saudi government didn’t say anything right away.
“The prisoners who were released from Saudi jails today are part of the deal reached through the UN, and the deal will be fully carried out on Thursday,” al-Murtaza said.
He was talking about a deal made in Switzerland last month, with the help of the United Nations, that frees 887 prisoners.
The UN’s special envoy to Yemen said that the deal is one of several signs that the eight-year war, which has killed tens of thousands of people and caused one of the worst humanitarian disasters in the world, is coming to an end.
In 2014, the Houthis took over Sanaa and most of the north of the country. This led to the overthrow of the internationally accepted government, which fled to the south and is now living in exile in Saudi Arabia.
Because of what the Houthis did, a group led by Saudi Arabia stepped in a few months later to try to put the government back in power.
Many people see the conflict as a fight between Saudi Arabia and Iran.
The prisoners were freed on the same day that delegations from Oman and Saudi Arabia came in Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, to meet with the head of the Houthi Supreme Political Council, according to the Houthi-run news agency Saba.
Mohammed Abdul Salam, who is in charge of negotiations for the Houthis and lives in Muscat, said on Twitter on Saturday that he had come to Sanaa with an Omani team.
The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, and Saudi Arabia have been meeting in Oman for years to talk.
These talks, which are going on at the same time as the UN’s peace efforts, have picked up speed in the past few weeks after Saudi Arabia and Iran agreed to fix their formal ties after a seven-year split.
The deal between Iran and Saudi Arabia, which was announced in Beijing on March 10, has given people new hope that the war in Yemen will end.