600,000 Syrians Returned Home in 2017, Mostly to Aleppo: UN

Well over half, approximately 67 percent, of the returning refugees have been to the Aleppo Governorate, where an estimated 405,420 individuals have been registered by the IOM as having returned. Hama Governorate has recieved the second highest number of returnees, with 75,209 individuals resettling in their homes.
 
Within the Aleppo Governorate, Aleppo City recieved the highest number of returnees. Backed with Russian support in a successful offensive to retake the city, the city was returned to Syrian Government control in December 2016 after having previously been under control of the armed opposition.
 
According to the IOM, the vast majority, 97 percent, of those returning have been able to return to their own houses. The rest are either with hosts, squatting in abandoned houses, in informal refugee settlements, or renting.
 
While the rate of return for those displaced by the war is steadily increasing, the IOM notes that there are still high rates of displacement in many areas of the country. They estimate that during the same period of time, from January to July of 2017, 808,661 Syrians were displaced.
 
“IDP returns have mainly been spontaneous but not necessarily voluntary, safe or sustainable. As such, they cannot, at present, be considered within the context of a durable solutions framework,” the UN-based organization wrote.
 
While the majority of returnees are able to return to their own secure housing, many still face poor access to clean water, health services, and food due to the massive destruction of basic infrastructure that has taken place.
 
Around 84 percent of those returning home were internally displaced within Syria and are returning due to the shifting boundaries of the conflict. Another 16 percent returned from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, or Iraq.
 
Well over half, approximately 67 percent, of the returning refugees have been to the Aleppo Governorate, where an estimated 405,420 individuals have been registered by the IOM as having returned. Hama Governorate has recieved the second highest number of returnees, with 75,209 individuals resettling in their homes.
 
Within the Aleppo Governorate, Aleppo City recieved the highest number of returnees. Backed with Russian support in a successful offensive to retake the city, the city was returned to Syrian Government control in December 2016 after having previously been under control of the armed opposition.
 
According to the IOM, the vast majority, 97 percent, of those returning have been able to return to their own houses. The rest are either with hosts, squatting in abandoned houses, in informal refugee settlements, or renting.
 
While the rate of return for those displaced by the war is steadily increasing, the IOM notes that there are still high rates of displacement in many areas of the country. They estimate that during the same period of time, from January to July of 2017, 808,661 Syrians were displaced.
 
“IDP returns have mainly been spontaneous but not necessarily voluntary, safe or sustainable. As such, they cannot, at present, be considered within the context of a durable solutions framework,” the UN-based organization wrote.
 
While the majority of returnees are able to return to their own secure housing, many still face poor access to clean water, health services, and food due to the massive destruction of basic infrastructure that has taken place.
 
Around 84 percent of those returning home were internally displaced within Syria and are returning due to the shifting boundaries of the conflict. Another 16 percent returned from Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, or Iraq.
 
 You remember Aleppo, don’t you? I wouldn’t blame you if you didn’t; corporate media outlets hardly ever talk about it anymore. It’s almost like they want us to forget the horror stories they told us about how the city that had been occupied by good, noble freedom fighters was about to be taken by an army of depraved psychopaths who wanted to rape women, burn children alive, and shoot civilians in their homes. Back at the tail end of 2016, though, it was all you ever heard. If the west didn’t intervene to stop Damascus and Moscow from retaking East Aleppo from the good-hearted rebels, everyone there would be raped, tortured, and butchered by the army of the Syrian government.
 
But oh my my, it sure is odd and peculiar and funny and interesting that hundreds of thousands of Syrians can’t wait to get back there. This same bloodthirsty government which wanted nothing more than to slaughter, rape and destroy them still controls the region, but people have been running back to rebuild their city anyway.
 
What’s up with that? Could we really have been misinformed about what’s been happening in Syria on such a massive scale? Could the near-unanimous perspective of pundits and politicians everywhere, the perspective that Bashar al-Assad is a sadistic tyrant who enjoys slaughtering civilians, be so dead wrong that the behavior of Syria’s own people seem to contradict it so directly