Aden/Geneva, Reuters, 16 December 2015 – The Saudi-led coalition fighting Houthis in Yemen has accused the Iranian-allied militia group of repeatedly violating a ceasefire and warned the truce could collapse, Saudi television reported on Wednesday.

“The number of violations is around 150 and this does not represent true intentions,” Brigadier General Ahmed al-Assiri told al-Ekhbariya television. “We urge the United Nations to clarify to the Houthis that there will be no patience towards these practices and the truce could collapse at any moment,” he added.
Earlier, Yemen’s warring parties agreed on Wednesday to exchange hundreds of prisoners in a move aimed at supporting U.N.-sponsored peace talks which resumed for a second day in Switzerland, but both sides accused the other of violating a ceasefire.

U.N. Secretary-General Special Envoy opens with delegations from Sanaa the Yemen peace talks in Switzerland
 

A seven-day truce, timed to coincide with the peace talks, began at mid-day on Tuesday to halt fighting in nine months of civil war between the Houthis based in Yemen’s north and Saudi-backed southern and eastern fighters loyal to President Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi.

Officials from both sides said the prisoner swap would be one of the most positive signs yet in the civil war, which has killed almost 6,000 people.

Abdel-Hakim al-Hasani, a senior southern militia leader, said 360 members of the Houthi movement held in Aden would be exchanged for 265 southern civilians and fighters at midday following tribal mediation.

An official from the Houthi-run prisons authority in the capital Sanaa said southern prisoners had boarded buses on their way to the exchange venue in central Yemen.

Witnesses in Aden said they saw buses guarded by local fighters travelling through the city, apparently heading to the exchange venue.

Despite the swap, both sides traded accusations of violating the truce, which included a pause in air strikes by a Saudi-led Arab alliance.