About 1.7 million Syrian refugees officially registered in foreign countries desire to return to their homeland, the Russian center for reconciliation of conflicting sides and refugee migration monitoring in Syria said in a daily bulletin on Saturday.
“It is estimated that 1,712,264 Syrian nationals in ten countries voiced their desire to come back home. Since September 30, 2015, in total 389,735 Syrians have returned to their homes from abroad,” the bulletin said, according to the Russian TASS news agency.
The UN Refugee Agency said about 6.675 million registered Syrian refugees have been temporarily living in 45 countries. Of those, Turkey hosts more than half, or 3.6 million people; Lebanon, about 1 million Syrians; and another 700,000 are in Jordan.
“Syria’s government is making active efforts to increase the efficiency of the process for the return of Syrian refugees from foreign states,” the center added.