850,000 Syrians returned home since Assad’s fall: UN

Since the fall of Bashar Assad’s government in December, some 850,000 Syrian refugees have returned home from neighboring countries and the figure could reach I million in the coming weeks, a top official with the U.N. refugee agency said Monday.

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Deputy High Commissioner of UNHCR Kelly T. Clements told The Associated Press in Damascus that about 1.7 million people who were internally displaced during the 14-year-old conflict have returned to their communities as the interim central government now controls large parts of Syria.

“It's a dynamic period. It’s an opportunity where we could see potentially solutions for the largest global displacements that we have seen in the last 14 years,” said Clements, who has been in Syria for three days.