The Houthis’ top official on prisoner affairs said Monday that the UN has proposed splitting up the first phase of a massive prisoner exchange agreed to in mid-March in Amman, as part of the Stockholm Agreement. Instead of each side releasing 1,420 prisoners, each side would release 1,030, with the remaining prisoners to be released at a future date. 

Yemen is racing against the clock as it takes measure to mitigate the looming threat of COVID-19. Houthi authorities and the internationally recognized government have released nearly 800 prisoners in the past two weeks. 

The claimed UN proposal was revealed in a tweet documented on Houthi-controlled Al-Masirah TV by the head of the Houthi-run National Committee for Prisoners’ Affairs, Abdelkader Al-Murtadha. The Houthis said they have agreed to the proposal. 

The office of UN Special Envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, had not responded to a request for comment as of publication. 

Majed Fadhel, Yemen’s deputy minister of human rights and a member of the team negotiating the prisoner swap, denied that the UN has proposed a split of phase one of the exchange. 

“No formal proposal has arrived for the government from the UN envoy, and if it [does], we will [examine] it and respond,” he told Almasdar Online.

He pointed out that the prisoner exchange agreed to in Amman is already the first phase of a two-phase agreement. “So why break it up [further]?”

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Editing by Ahlam Mohsen and Casey Coombs