MOSCOW, September 5. /TASS/. Militants have shelled 20 settlements in the Syrian provinces of Aleppo, Latakia, Idlib and Hama in the past 24 hours, chief of the Russian Center for reconciliation of the conflicting sides in Syria Alexey Bakin told reporters on Thursday.

"Thirty-one shelling incidents were reported on September 4," Bakin said, adding that 20 settlements came under fire.

He also noted that in the past 24 hours, officers from the Russian reconciliation center have delivered 500 food sets to the residents of a settlement in the Aleppo province with a total weight of 2.42 tonnes. Since the start of the reconciliation process, 2,198 humanitarian operations have been carried out, Bakin said.

He added that refugees continue to return to their homes. According to the latest data, 615,582 people have returned to Syria from foreign countries, while 1,303,896 internally displaced Syrians have returned to the places of their previous residence.

The Russian reconciliation center continues to fulfill the tasks assigned to them after the completion of the military campaign in Syria. They regularly travel around the country's liberated areas to assess the humanitarian situation. The main efforts of the Russian military are now focused on aiding the refugees who are returning back to their homes and evacuating civilians from the war-torn country’s de-escalation zones.