Minister: Syria ready to repatriate refugees from Lebanon

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — A Syrian Cabinet minister says Syrian refugees in neighboring Lebanon can start returning home, where he says they will get all the help they need from authorities. Minister of Local Administration Hussein Makhlouf made his comments Monday during a meeting in the capital Damascus. Tiny Lebanon is home to 1 million Syrian refugees who fled war in their country after the conflict began in March 2011. The large number of refugees in the small Mediterranean nation makes it one of the highest per capita host countries of refugees in the world. More than 5 million Syrians are refugees, most of them in Lebanon, Turkey and Jordan.