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Marwan Ali

Marwan Ali (also known as Marwan Kafarna) is a senior international diplomat who brokered a large-scale prisoner exchange agreement between the Government of Yemen and the Houthis in Stockholm in December 2018. Ali has served as the Chief of the Political Affairs Section at the UN Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen (OSESGY). He is the most senior UN official based in the temporary capital of Yemen, Aden. Prior to that, he was the Director of Political Affairs at the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq. Ali is a survivor of the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad in 2003.

Biography

Ali was born on 18 October 1956 in Beit Hanoun, Gaza. He graduated from Mosul University in Iraq where he studied social science. Ali joined the United Nations in 1995, first working for the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) in Gaza as a Project Development Officer supporting small enterprises and community resilience programs. He subsequently joined the UN Special Coordinator’s Office for the Middle East Peace Process, heading the media and civil affairs unit.

In 2003, Ali joined the UN’s political mission in Iraq as a Political Advisor to the UN Special Envoy, Sérgio Vieira de Mello. The same year, Ali survived the Canal Hotel bombing in Baghdad, one of the deadliest terrorist attacks in the UN’s history that killed 22 people, including de Mello. Ali continued work at the UN Mission in Iraq during the course of the Iraq War that started in 2003 and served as the Director of Political Affairs. In 2004, he led the establishment of the inaugural Independent High Electoral Commission. After 2011, he was actively involved in promoting Iraq’s national reconciliation efforts, collaborating closely with the National Reconciliation Commission and the Prime Minister’s Office. He was also known for high-profile efforts to further the Arab-Kurdish reconciliation, which culminated in the first-ever visit by the Arab Governor of Mosul to Erbil in 2012.

Ali served in Iraq under several Special Representatives of the Secretary-General until 2017 and oversaw the mission’s political outreach during critical times, including the ISIS takeover of Mosul.

In 2017, Ali joined the UN Office of the Special Envoy of the Secretary-General for Yemen as the Chief of the Political Affairs section, where he led the Office’s engagement on the Southern Question. He deployed to Aden as the Head of Office in 2019, where he was the highest-ranking UN official based in the temporary capital of Yemen. In December 2019, Ali brokered a massive prisoner exchange agreement between the Government of Yemen and Ansar Allah in Stockholm, which envisaged the release of 12,000 detainees and prisoners.

Personal life

Ali is fluent in Arabic, English and Hebrew. He is married with three children.