Return to Peace: Syrian Military Continues to Clear Homs From explosive devices- MoD

Syrian engineering units disposed 59 explosive devices in the country’s Homs Province over the past 24 hours, the Syrian office of the Russian Center for the Reception, Allocation and Accommodation of Refugees said on Sunday.

“Over the past 24 hours, Syrian army engineering units carried on mine clearance operations… in the Homs province, having cleared 4.3 hectares of territory, three buildings and one kilometer of roads. They found and defused 59 explosive devices, including 13 improvised explosive devices,” the center said.

To date, Syrian engineers found and defused 7,612 explosive devices including 2,370 improvised explosive devices, in Homs and Damascus provinces, clearing up 262.3 hectares of the territory, 808 buildings and 56.8 kilometers of roads.

Syrians Return Home

The center also noted that over 200 Syrian refugees have returned to their home country from neighboring Lebanon over the same period of time.

“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.

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