NORTHERN ALEPPO COUNTRYSIDE, Syria — The Syrian government is working to lure displaced residents back to regime-controlled areas, even as the opposition hopes to keep that from happening.
Among those originally displaced from Homs' al-Waer neighborhood, 574 people, or nearly a hundred families, came back July 10 to the regime-held city. They had left the Zoghra camp, which is near Jarablus in the Operation Euphrates Shield area in the northeastern Aleppo countryside — namely the areas the operation liberated from the Islamic State. A few hours after their arrival in Homs, the regime allowed the displaced to return to their houses once they were searched and their names checked on the list of returnees.