MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 26th August, 2018) Over 200 Syrian refugees have returned to their home country from neighboring Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry's Center for Refugee Reception, Distribution and Settlement said on Sunday.
"Over the past 24 hours, 202 refugees (61 women and 103 children) returned to Syria from Lebanon through the Jaydet-Yabus checkpoint," the center said in a daily bulletin.
Since July 18, over 8,000 Syrians had returned to their home country from abroad, the statement added. The center specified that 8,522 people had returned from Lebanon, including 4,089 people who had returned through the Jaydet-Yabus checkpoint, 3,108 people who had returned via the Zemrani checkpoint, 802 people who had returned through al-Dabusiyah checkpoint and 523 people who had returned via al-Qusayr checkpoint. The bulletin noted that 318 had returned from Jordan through the Nasib checkpoint.
According to the refugee center, 714 internally displaced persons (IDPs), including 245 women and 338 children, and 10 pieces of equipment have been evacuated from the Idlib de-escalation zone over the past 24 hours.
Since September 30, 2015, over 1.2 million Syrian IDPs had returned to their homes, the center pointed out.
Syria has been devastated by years of violent civil war which had prompted millions of people to flee hostilities from the areas where they lived to other locations in Syria and outside the country.
The Russian Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees was created in late July as part of Moscow's assistance to Syria in the process of the country's transition to peaceful life.
