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AFP
GENEVA
AN estimated 750,000 internally displaced Syrians returned to their homes through the first half of 2018, nearly equal the amount for all of last year, the United Nations said on Friday.
The returns have largely occurred in areas that government forces have clawed back from opposition groups including Aleppo, Homs and Rural Damascus, the UN refugee agency said in a statement.
The rate of returns this year has clearly outpaced that of 2017, when an estimated 760,000 people went back to homes they had been forced to flee.
UNHCR said that in 2017 it had"ramped up its capacity inside Syria" in anticipation that larger numbers of internally displaced people (IDPs) would head home to certain areas as the dynamics of the Syrian conflict changed.
The spike in returns came as record numbers were displaced elsewhere.
