UNHCR says 250,000 Syrian refugees could return home next year

Up to 250,000 Syrian refugees could return to their devastated homeland in 2019, the UN refugee agency UNHCR said on Tuesday. Many others face problems with documentation and property that the government in Damascus must help resolve, it said. Some 5.6 million Syrian refugees remain in neighboring countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Egypt and Iraq, Amin Awad, UNHCR director for the Middle East and North Africa, told reporters in Geneva. Some 37,000 have returned this year, Reuters said, citing UNHCR. “We are forecasting in this phase up to 250,000 Syrians go back in 2019. That figure can go up and down according to the pace with which we are working and removing these obstacles to return,” Awad said.