Red Cross visits Houthi prisoners in Yemen’s Taiz

By Mohammed al-Samei

SANAA (AA) – The Yemeni government on Tuesday allowed a Red Cross delegation to visit Houthi detainees in the southwestern Taiz province.

The move was the first since Yemen fell into civil war in 2014 when Houthi rebels overran much of the country, including the capital Sanaa.

“A promising step: today we were allowed to visit detainees in Taiz for the first time,” head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) Peter Maurer said on Twitter.

“Now we need all parties to agree to regular visits,” he added.

Army colonel Abdo Hamouda al-Saghir, for his part, said the delegation visited detained fighters from the Houthi group and allied forces of former president Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"The visit aimed to inspect conditions of the Houthi prisoners and their allies in the city,” al-Saghir told Anadolu Agency.

A Red Cross delegation had arrived in the southern city of Aden, the current seat of the Yemeni government, on Sunday for talks with Prime Minister Ahmad bin Dagher on the humanitarian situation in the country.

In 2015, Saudi Arabia and its Arab allies launched a massive air campaign aimed at reversing Houthi military gains and shoring up Yemen’s embattled government.

According to UN officials, more than 10,000 people have been killed in the war, while more than 11 percent of the country’s population has been displaced as a direct result of the conflict.