SANAA // The Saudi-led coalition in Yemen on Monday said it had completed a prisoner swap of nine Saudis for 109 Yemenis.
The move came ahead of a planned truce and peace talks aimed at ending the year-long war with the Houthi rebels.
Saudi Arabia’s nationals were returned on Sunday, the coalition said. The alliance “hopes to begin a truce in conflict areas of the Republic of Yemen”, it said.
The nine Yemenis were reported to be soldiers who had been detained near the Saudi border.
The Iran-backed Houthis confirmed on Sunday they had exchanged prisoners with Riyadh in one of several swaps between the two sides since late last year.
Last week the United Nations said the warring parties had agreed to a ceasefire, starting at midnight on April 10, and peace talks in Kuwait to try to end the crisis after two rounds of failed talks last year.
Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said “there is widespread hope that the coming Kuwait talks will function as a step in the right direction”.
The coalition said on Monday that border areas between Saudi Arabia and Yemen remained relatively calm.
It said it hoped to see the lull “spread to combat zones to facilitate the sending of humanitarian aid to all of Yemen’s territory”, and to support UN efforts to reach a political settlement.
But Saudi civil defence said on Sunday that eight people, including four children, had been wounded by fire from Yemen.
More than 90 people have been killed on the Saudi side of the frontier by shelling and in skirmishes over the past year.
And air raids killed 14 men suspected of belonging to Al Qaeda in southern Yemen on Sunday, medics and residents said.
* Agence France-Presse, Reuters and Associated Press.