750,000 internally displaced Syrians returned home in first half of 2018, UNHCR says

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says an estimated 750,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Syria returned to their homes in the first half of the current year, adding that the figure equals the amount for all of last year.

United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) says an estimated 750,000 internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Syria returned to their homes in the first half of the current year, adding that the figure equals the amount for all of last year.

The UN refugee agency announced in a statement on Friday that the repatriations have taken place mostly in areas that Syrian government troops and allied fighters from popular defense groups have liberated from the clutches of foreign-sponsored Takfiri militants in the country’s northern province of Aleppo, central province of Homs as well as the southwestern province of Rif Dimashq.

UNHCR noted that the rate of returns this year has markedly outpaced that of 2017, when an estimated 760,000 people went back to homes they had been forced to run off.

The United Nations agency went on to state that it had “ramped up its capacity inside Syria” in anticipation that larger numbers of internally displaced people would return home in the wake of territorial gains scored by Syrian soldiers and their allies in battles against Takfiri militants.