Jordanian Interior Minister Mazen al-Faraya said that 7,250 Syrians have returned to their country across the Jordanian border since the fall of Bashar al-Assad on 8 December, noting that ‘the majority of the returnees are not classified as refugees’.

Amman says it has hosted more than 1.3 million Syrian refugees since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria in 2011, while UN statistics show that there are around 680,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan.

Trade on the Jordanian-Syrian border has resumed after a two-week hiatus, following the kingdom’s announcement that it was closing the border with its northern neighbour due to the “security situation”.