Yemen releases 428 Houthi prisoners

Yemeni government says it has freed over 400 Hezbollahi Houthi prisoners as part of a ceasefire deal in its long-running conflict.

The Houthis have confirmed the release of 428 fighters on Thursday as part of a fragile peace deal mediated by Qatar.

Of those, 270 were set free in the Yemeni capital, Sana’a, and the rest in the northern city of Saada, a Yemeni security official said.

The Houthis said in a statement released on Thursday that they had returned 10 military vehicles to Yemeni authorities.

According to a deal signed in February 2010, signed between the two sides, the Houthis was expected to “surrender weaponry seized during the armed conflict” with the government.

The Yemeni government launched Operation Scorched Earth on August 11, 2007 to uproot the Houthi fighters, whom Sana’a accuses of seeking a return to the Zaydi imamate overthrown in a 1962 coup.

Saada and neighboring Amran province, the strongholds of the Houthi fighters, were frequently pounded by fighter jets and helicopter gunships.

The conflict zones in northern Yemen remains cut off from the rest of the country and the locals are grappling with a pressing shortage of food and other basic supplies.

The United Nations puts the number of people displaced by fighting in Yemen at 250,000.