Thousands have returned to their hometowns in northwest Syria after military advances by regime loyalist against jihadists and allied rebels, state-rin media said Sunday.
"Thousands of citizens return to their villages and towns of the northern Hama countryside and the southern Idlib countryside," state news agency SANA said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitor, reported "around 3,000 people" going home from other areas under regime control.
Since August 31, a ceasefire announced by regime backer Russia has largely held in northwestern Syria, though the Observatory has reported sporadic bombardment.
SANA said the returns came amid "regime efforts to return the displaced to their towns and villages".
The Idlib region of around three million people, many of them dispaced by fighting in other areas, is one of the last holdouts of opposition to forces backing Bashar al-Assad.
Moscow announced the ceasefire late last month after four months of deadly violence that displaced 400,000 people, most of whom fled north within the jihadist-run bastion, according to the United Nations.
Regime forces had chipped away at the southern edges of the jihadist-run stronghold throughout August, retaking towns and villages in the north of Hama province and the south of Idlib province.
Assad's regime now controls more than 60 percent of the country after notching up a series of victories against rebels and jihadists with key Russian backing since 2015.
But a large chunk of Idlib, fully administered by Syria's former Al-Qaeda affiliate since January, as well as a Kurdish-held swathe of the oil-rich northeast, remain beyond its reach.
The ceasefire is the second since Damascus escalated its operations in the area in April, which have since left at least 1100 civilians dead, according to Observatory figures, and which the UN says have forced more than 600,000 people to flee.
A UN inquiry into a series of regime and Russian attacks on UN-supported facilities in northwestern Idlib province will begin this month’s end, the international body announced Friday.
Secretary-General Antonio Guterres initiated the review at the behest of the ambassadors of the U.S., U.K., France, Belgium, the Dominican Republic, Germany, Indonesia, Kuwait, Peru and Poland who urged Guterres to look into attacks on medical facilities and possible abuse of the UN's deconfliction channel.
The investigation will be led by Nigerian Lt. Gen. Chikadibia Obiakor, and will include Janet Lim of Singapore, and Maria Santos Pais of Portugal.
At the time of the request Human Rights Watch offered strong support for the inquiry, saying the UN provided Russia, the regime and other parties with "coordinates of hospitals in Idlib to ensure their safety."
Mark Lowcock, the UN's humanitarian affairs coordinator, told the Security Council last month that the regime's more than three-month offensive in northwest Syria has left at least 17 villages in southern Idlib not only decimated but "emptied" as well.
"What you see is a level of destruction consistent with a bombing campaign aimed at a scorched earth policy," he said at the time.
The eight-year-old war has claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and forced 13 million people from their homes, half of whom have left their shattered homeland.
Zaman Al Wasl, Agencies
Zaman Al Wasl
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