First Syrian civilians return to Raqqa after mines cleared

Last month SDF forces announced the landmark capture of Raqqa from IS fighters after more than four months of fighting.

Tens of thousands of people fled the city during the offensive, reducing Raqqa to a ghost town of collapsed buildings.

The SDF said in an online statement that hundreds of families had returned to Al-Meshleb, Raqqa's easternmost district. 

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The SDF informed civilians from Al-Meshleb that they could return to their homes after mine-removal teams had finished clearing the entire neighbourhood of explosives left indiscriminately in civilian homes by IS, the force's press centre said. 

It said the district was the first to which residents had returned since the city's "liberation from Daesh", an Arabic acronym for IS.

After capturing Raqqa, the SDF sealed off the city to allow for mine removal operations in bombed-out neighbourhoods. 

Residents amassed at checkpoints in recent weeks, waiting for permission to access the city and see if their homes were still standing. Some civilians who sneaked in were killed by unexploded ordnance.

Mine-clearing and reconstruction operations in Raqqa are being coordinated by the Raqqa Civil Council, a provisional local government body appointed by the SDF but based outside the city.

"Yes, residents of Al-Meshleb returned to their homes – but the whole city hasn't been cleared of mines yet," senior council member Omar Alloush told AFP on Monday. 

The deputy head of the council's reconstruction committee, Nazmi Mohammad, said the body had dispatched 10 bulldozers to Raqqa to help clear rubble and blocked-off roads in Al-Meshleb. 

After capturing the city in 2014, IS used Raqqa as the hub for its self-styled "caliphate". Raqqa became synonymous with the group's most gruesome atrocities, with public beheadings and hangings commonplace.