Over 700 Syrians Returned Home From Jordan, Lebanon Over Past 24 Hours - Russian Military

Over Syrian 700 refugees returned to their home country from neighboring Jordan and Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday

MOSCOW (UrduPoint News / Sputnik - 18th March, 2019) Over Syrian 700 refugees returned to their home country from neighboring Jordan and Lebanon over the past 24 hours, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday.

"Over the past day 770 refugees returned to the Syrian Arab Republic from the territories of foreign states, including 212 people (64 women, 108 children) from Lebanon through Jaydet-Yabus and Talkalakh checkpoints and 558 people (167 women, 285 children) from Jordan through Nasib checkpoint," Russian military's Center for Reconciliation of Opposing Sides and Refugee Migration Monitoring said.

It also stressed that 145 refugees made it back to their places of permanent residence.

As the Center also stated, in Al-Bayda (Hama province) there was a humanitarian aid operation carried out by Russia in order to provide local people with 500 food rations weighing 2.

16 tonnes. This action was one of 2,083 others held by Moscow.

Lebanon and Jordan are the most popular destinations for Syrian refugees, as well as Turkey and Iraq. According to the UN data, Jordan welcomed more than 600,000 Syrians by 2017 and Lebanon almost 1 million. However, the situation is changing, with over 160,000 having returned to Syria from foreign states over the last eight months, Russian Ministry of Defense said. Besides, 1,712,364 Syrian refugees have expressed their wish to return back home.

The Syrian military conflict started in 2011, causing massive out-migration. According to United Nations High Commissioner's for Refugees data, there were 6,675,308 Syrian refugees in total in 45 countries all over the world as of January 1, 2019.