Around 6,500 civilians who had fled fighting in Syria’s Eastern Ghouta region have returned to the towns of Kafr Batna and Saqba as the situation is “being stabilised”, the Russian military said on Thursday, according to TASS news agency.
Separately, Russian agencies cited the Defence Ministry as saying that since Russia began imposing “humanitarian pauses” in the fighting – in which it is helping Syrian forces drive rebels out of their last stronghold near Damascus – around 95,000 people had left Eastern Ghouta, including 5,000 civilians evacuated on Thursday.
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