Dozens of Syrians leave Lebanon for home

A total of 42 Syrians returned voluntarily from Lebanon through the Masnaa crossing to areas in Syria, according to Lebanese authorities.

A Lebanese coordinator said they were headed for areas including Moadmiyet al-Sham, a suburb of Damascus where the regime retook control from rebels in October 2016.

An AFP reporter saw men and women dressed in crisp clothes board a bus, some carrying bags or young children.

Mohammad Nakhla, 58, was anxious to set foot in his home country for the first time in six years.

"I've never felt better," he said, as he waited to return with 10 family members to Moadmiyet al-Sham.

Lebanon hosts just under one million registered refugees from the conflict in Syria, although authorities say the real number is much higher.

However, more and more are returning as the regime reasserts its control over larger parts of the country.

Damascus has approved the return of 450 Syrian refugees from Lebanon from a list of 3,000 requesting to do so, Lebanon's state news agency NNA said this week.

On Friday, the head of Lebanon's Hizballah said his powerful movement was creating a mechanism to help Syrian refugees return home, in coordination with Lebanese authorities and Damascus.

Hassan Nasrallah said the group was setting up centres with phone numbers and social media accounts where refugees could sign up to return home.

Nasrallah said Hizballah would take advantage of the summer months as Syrian families would want to be home before schools open in September. 

"There is no time to lose," he said. "There is a huge difference between living in a tent and returning home, to your neighbourhood, your school.”

Nasrallah said neither his group nor the Lebanese government wanted to force refugees to return. 

But he warned of local and international efforts aimed at dissuading refugees from going home. 

Lebanon's top diplomat Gebran Bassil has accused United Nations refugee agency UNHCR of trying to persuade refugees to stay in Syria, and retaliated by blocking the issuing of any new work permits for the agency's foreign staff. 

More than 920,000 people were displaced inside Syria during the first four months of 2018, the highest level in the seven-year conflict.

On Thursday, 294 Syrian refugees headed home from the Lebanese border town of Arsal.

Earlier this year, around 500 refugees also left southern Lebanon for Syria in a return organised by Beirut and Damascus.

Several thousand have independently left in recent years.

More than 350,000 people have been killed and over half the country's population displaced since Syria's war started with the brutal repression of anti-government protests in 2011.

Agencies contributed to this report.