SHAFAQNA- More than 1,000 Syrian refugees left Lebanon Monday to return to Syria after liberation their home towns from the clutches of foreign-sponsored ISIS terrorist groups.
General Security said 1,103 refugees returned to Syria Monday via the Masnaa, Abboudieh and Al-Zamarani border crossings in cooperation with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Daily Star reported.
Refugees returned home using buses sent by Syrian authorities, and arrived at al-Zamrani, Jdeidat Yabous, al-Dabbousiya border crossings from Lebanese territories on Monday afternoon.
The refugees underwent medical checks and anti-polio vaccines were administered to children. They were then transferred to Syria’s northern and central provinces of Idlib and Homs in addition to other areas in the crisis-stricken Arab country.
Arabic-language Elnashra online independent newspaper reported that the return of refugees took place under the supervision of Lebanon’s General Security in cooperation with the Lebanese army.
“Lebanon’s General Security is keen on continuously securing a voluntary return of Syrian refugees to their towns,” Colonel Khattar Nasreddine, head of the Public Security Information Division in northern Lebanon, said.
Nasreddine said that the voluntary return of refugees to their homeland was in the interest of both the Syrian and the Lebanese nations.
More than one million Syrian refugees are registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) in Lebanon.
The Beirut government estimates that the true number of Syrians in Lebanon stands at 1.5 million, press tv told.
General Security head Maj. Gen. Abbas Ibrahim said Friday that about 110,000 Syrian refugees have returned from Lebanon in 2018, according to local news channel MTV.
He did not specify how many refugees among the total had returned by themselves or through the trips that General Security has been organizing since the summer in coordination with Syrian authorities.
Some 5.6 million Syrian refugees remain in neighboring countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq – Amin Awad, UNHCR director for the Middle East and North Africa, told a news briefing. Some 37,000 have returned this year, UNHCR figures show, Egypt Today reported.
Syria has been gripped by foreign-backed militancy since March 2011. The Syrian government says the Israeli regime and its Western and regional allies are aiding Takfiri terrorist groups wreaking havoc in the country.