" According to a study by the International Organization for Migration (a United Nations body), some 602,759 displaced Syrians have been returned to their homes of which about two-thirds of that number specifically resettled in Aleppo Governorate.
"The period of time the study accounts for is from January to June 2017. Of the 602,759 returned Syrians, approximately 84 percent were internally displaced and the remaining sixteen percent were displaced in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
The study found that two of the biggest regions that had seen the resettlement of displaced Syrians were the provinces of Aleppo and Hama in which 405,420 and 75,209 people (respectively) were returned.
Furthermore, regarding Aleppo Governorate, the UN report specified that 97 percent of all returned people actually settled into their original homes. The remaining three percent were said to be renting, living in abandoned households or staying in informal refugee camps.
That study went on to clarify that, in the event, the housing conditions which Syrians have returned to are not perfect as general access to health services, clean water and food remains a problem in many areas." AMN
—————-
Expect this to accelerate. R+6 is rapidly gaining ground all over the country except in Idlib Province west of Aleppo city. pl
https://www.almasdarnews.com/article/600000-syrians-return-home-majority-aleppo/
But but but evil russkies! Assad! Barrel bombs! BARREL BOMBS!
Israelis are upset with the diminished numbers of slaughtered in the Middle East:
http://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Netanyahu-to-Congressmen-Kurds-should-have-a-state-502336
“Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu told a delegation of 33 Republican congressmen last week that he is in favor of an independent Kurdish state in parts of Iraq.”
The obvious corollary should be this: it is in the national interest of EU countries to assist the Syrian govt in regaining control of its territory, all the better to ease their own Refugee Crisis.
Or is it unfashionable for European countries to think for themselves for a change?
Yeah, Right
that is the obvious corollary. pl
It feels like life returning back to the body. Like an old warrior king who’s grievous wounds are healing and the infections are quelled. Not yet whole but Syria will live.
The people who matter are probably breathing a sigh of relief. Syria was turning into a meat-grinder for Neocon dreams. Now the little scamps can still play the “stabbed in the back card” yet recover to do more mischief elsewhere.
With faint echos of Ft Sumter in the wind maybe they might need to refocus.
Elsewhere is here.
I do not think so.
Their obvious policy has been – over decades – the selection of Wahabis and Deobandis and assorted Jihadists as their bosom buddies; policies promulgated by elected officials of very many representative systems in EU.
The corollary of that policy has been opposition to the Party of Ali – in all its political manifestations – including that of the core state of Muslim Civilization.
Col Lang
These figures are as significant as the
recent R+6 military successes.
A lot of people are voting with their
feet. They are throwing in with the apparent
winner.
Also, if only 5% of these people are military
age males then this could be another 30,000
soldiers for R+6.
Nightsticker
USMC 65-72
FBI 72-96
This is really good news.
I am not disputing that the actual policies of the EU leadership are as you describe. I am, however, pointing out that the direct result of those policies is that Europe has become entangled in a Refugee Crisis.
If those refugees show a tendency to return home once that “home” has been retaken by the forces of the Syrian state then I will suggest – once more, yet again – that it should be obvious to any half-witted European “leader” that the solution to their own Refugee Crisis lies with the success of the govt of Bashir Assad.
And, sure, those EU leaders might instead insist on doubling-down on their Assad Must Go! policies. Maybe. Probably they will.
But if they do then that suggests either that the Refugee Crisis isn’t as bad as they claim it is, or they are willingly engaging in policy that runs counter to their own national interests.
You know, the sort of behaviour that would be expected of a craven vassal.
Thank you for your comments.
We have come back frequently to the same meritless distinction between True Interests of EU (or US, or Russia) and what her freely elected and duly and legally seated governments adopt. EU states, over decades, have been on the side of Wahabis and Deobandis, factually.
I submit to you that indicates the core interests of the electorates.
Col.,
Very good knews. Looks like the returning Syrians are erasing the borg’s line in the sand.
Please, please!
Current Migrant Crisis and NOT Refugee Crisis has nothing to do with Syria. Syrians dont come to Italy on boats from Libya.
Even those coming from the direction of the Middle East are mostly afghans, bangldeshi and pakistani. They dont even speak arabic!!!!
You are right, but the main “refugee” issue in Europe, right now, is not Syrians, but sub-saharian Africans coming to Europe either through Libya and Italia, or, more and more, through Marocco and Spain. Plus, for some european countries still accepting them as asylum seekers, migrants coming from Kosovo and Albania (many of them for “kidney shopping”, as do the Armenians).
I think you’ll find that Europeans are well aware of the relationship between stability in Syria and the refugee problem. How could they not be? However for politicians isolated in their ivory towers other issues can be allowed to become more important, like – excuse me for saying it – cooperating with USG policy. But also because they listen too much to their handful of Syrian exile courtiers (like the French). Merkel is the only one to have done something (right or wrong), in getting Erdogan to keep them in Turkey.
But today, the problem is not really the Syrians. There are few Syrians in the boats coming from Libya – they are mostly sub-Saharan Africans looking for a better life. i.e. the same as Trump’s Mexicans.
I am really glad that the Syrians are beginning to go home. It’s the only solution for them.
I have followed the link that Pat Lang put on the end of his article and I accept that the numbers mentioned are overwhelmingly “internally displaced” (84%), with the remaining 16% coming from “bordering countries” in Lebanon, Iraq, Turkey and Jordan.
The article is, indeed, silent about Syrian refugees inside EU countries. I have heard numbers of around 300,000 in Germany, and slightly more in Greece.
You are claiming that those refugees aren’t Syrians? Do you have figures?
I’ve seen five people now state as fact that “most” of the people who are coming into Europe are “sub-Saharan Africans”.
Some numbers would be nice.
The numbers that I have seen state 300,000 Syrians are in Germany, and roughly the same number are in Greece.
I am open to those better informed than me…..
Babak – you write ” EU states, over decades, have been on the side of Wahabis and Deobandis, factually.
I submit to you that indicates the core interests of the electorates.”
I think you may be underestimating the gap between the interests of the Western electorates and those of their rulers.
For a start I doubt we could arrive at a reckoning of who precisely our rulers are. The few at the top I’ve met see themselves more as cogs in an irresistible machine rather than as lords of our fortunes. That aside the ruling elite itself, however it’s defined, doesn’t have a coherent strategy for pursuing even its own interests.
The picture I get in England is not at all a picture of a confident and unified ruling elite knowing where they’re going and what they want to do. It looks more like various groups of chancers partly pursuing their own advantage and partly (the more dangerous ones) pursuing some ideology or other they’ve got hold of but that they haven’t thought through. Plus a few honest souls who dream of changing things from the inside.
So it looks as if they’re all just as much at sea as the rest of us when it comes to working out a purposeful set of policies. This waywardness of purpose does of course render them the more vulnerable to pressure from outside interest groups, which themselves only look to short term advantage when it comes to getting the politicians to do what they want. Also, let’s be realistic, most of them know damn all about what’s happening abroad and those that do have to follow the whatever the current party line turns out to be so as not to rock the boat.
Add to this waywardness at the top two factors:-
1. The ruling elites, taken together with the supporting administrative apparatus, are now so large and so distinct from their electorates that they can almost be regarded as separate countries. When we speak figuratively of the Beltway or the Westminster Village we are to some extent speaking literally as well. It’s therefore to be expected that there will be some divergence between them and us.
2. News management is more effective than it was. If the ruling elites don’t have a coherent plan, they do have ample means at their disposal for selling us whatever muddle is being pushed through at any given moment.
You may disagree, Babak, with my attempt at finding a structure to the muddle Western countries have got themselves into when it comes to governing themselves, but what I hope you will agree with is that it is a muddle. The connection between what is being done and why in foreign policy and what we think is being done and why is tenuous. We can’t therefore look at the mayhem our various governments are letting loose abroad, as I think you are doing, and draw a direct connection between that and what the peoples of the West think is in their interests. Don’t forget, too, that most have never heard of Wahhabis and Deobandis and such, let alone know anything of how our governments have been utilising them.
” I have heard numbers of around 300,000 in Germany”
For 2011-2016, there are 600.000 registered refugees from Syria in Germany, 2/3 of them came 2015/16.
This is so eurocrat that leaves me speechless. Are you german? Or dutch? Maybe danish?
Everybody fakes his own numbers. Remember Winston Churchill?
If most of the internal and Turkey dwelling refugees returned what are the millions of non-EU members doing in your countries? Guess where are they from.
And most of them does not even speak arabic, because they have “lost” their papers.
Most of these “”””syrians””” arrived without any document. I know, I see piles and heaps of pakistani, banghladeshi and afghan passports at the hungarian border.
Me wake up! Someone is seriously fooling you all.
“I’ve seen five people now state as fact that “most” of the people who are coming into Europe are “sub-Saharan Africans”.
Some numbers would be nice.”
You just have to look at the photos of the boats. They’re all blacks, scarcely an ME face to be seen.
Thank you for your comments.
Your response reminds me of an incident that was related to me by a Jewish friend.
He had gone to the screening of a movie made by a German woman about World War II. That movie was a depiction of the sufferings of German people through the lives of the protagonists of the script.
During the discussion, my friend, having been truly provoked by all that insensible discussion about common suffering on both sides of the War, stood up and asked: “Then who was responsible?”
The place went silent.
My friend told me that he regretted his outburst later.
Nevertheless, the question he posed remains pertinent to our current discussion.