PALMYRA (Syria) (Sputnik) – Government buses will start running to the recently-liberated historic city of Palmyra in Syria this weekend, the governor of Syria's Homs province, Talal al-Barazi, said.
The buses will carry residents to and from Palmyra beginning on April 9 and will run on a daily basis, Talal al-Barazi said, as cited by the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on Thursday.
Speaking during a visit to Palmyra, the governor of Homs said that the first stage of maintenance work in the city has already been launched in order to help local residents return to their homes.
Syria has been mired in civil war since March 2011, with government forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar Assad fighting numerous opposition factions and extremist groups, such as ISIL, also known as Daesh, and Jabhat al-Nusra (Nusra Front). A US-Russia-brokered ceasefire came into force across Syria on February 27. It does not apply to terrorist groups such as Daesh and Nusra Front, both of which are banned in Russia.
According to Talal al-Barazi, 3,000 families left Palmyra amid the violence; 10 percent of them have left Syria.
Palmyra, located in Syria’s Homs province, was first documented in the early second millennium BC. It is a UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) World Heritage Site.
Russian specialists are currently assisting Syrian experts in clearing Palmyra of bombs and land mines planted all over the city by Daesh militants before their retreat.
