The first group of freed prisoners of the Yemeni army and fighters from their allied Popular Committees has arrived in the country’s southern coastal city of Aden, with the Saudi-led coalition asserting that the move is aimed to support UN efforts to solidify a two-month truce that went into effect early last month.
Coalition spokesman General Turki al-Malki said in a statement that three stages of airlifting prisoners to Sana’a and Aden would be completed on Friday.
According to Saudi-owned al-Arabiya and al-Hadath television news networks, the first plane, operated by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), carried 40 of the released prisoners to the Aden airport.
Dubai-based channels added that the Saudi-led coalition fighting Yemenis would free 108 prisoners.
A spokesman for the ICRC told AFP that the organization was “facilitating the transfer of more than 100 former Yemeni detainees from Saudi Arabia to Yemen.”
The spokesman, Basheer Omar, said there would be three ICRC flights from the Saudi city of Abha to Aden.
