Almost 900,000 refugees can return to Syria in coming months – UN, Russian military

About 890,000 Syrian citizens can return to their home country in the coming months, head of Russia’s National Defense Control Center Colonel-General Mikhail Mizintsev said on Friday. He made the announcement at a meeting of the interdepartmental coordination headquarters supervising the return of refugees to Syria, citing the data provided by the United Nations Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. Earlier on Friday, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said 1.7 million people expressed the desire to return to Syria. According to Mizintsev, Lebanon’s regional refugee centers have received around 10,000 applications from Syrian refugees willing to return to their home country, TASS reports.