Daily Times

Thousands of displaced Syrians were heading home Saturday after rebels and the government reached a ceasefire deal in the south following more than two weeks of deadly bombardment, a monitor said.

Under the agreement announced Friday after talks between rebels and regime ally Moscow, opposition fighters will hand over territory and heavy weapons in Daraa province near the Jordanian border.

The Russia-backed regime offensive has displaced around 320,000 people since June 19, the United Nations says, including tens of thousands who fled south to the sealed border with Jordan. Calm reigned over the region on Saturday as the two sides finalised the ceasefire deal, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said.

“People have started to return to their homes since yesterday, taking advantage of the calm,” Observatory chief Rami Abdel Rahman said. “More than 20,000 people have set off for home so far, heading to areas for which an accord has been reached in the southeastern Daraa countryside,” he said.

Published in Daily Times, July 8^th 2018.