About a dozen Christian nuns held by rebels in Syria for more than three months were released on Sunday and arrived back in Syria after traveling through Lebanon, officials and witnesses said.

Witnesses at the Syrian border with Lebanon said the nuns arrived at the crossing late on Sunday night and headed toward Damascus in a minibus. One witness counted 13 nuns and three other workers from their convent.

"I'm in good health, thank God," one of the nuns said by phone, leaving before she could give her name or further details.

A Lebanese security source had said the nuns had been taken to the Lebanese town of Arsal earlier in the week and would head to the Syrian capital on Sunday accompanied by the head of a Lebanese security agency and a Qatari intelligence official.

The nuns disappeared in December after Islamist fighters took the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula, north of Damascus.

After being held in the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla in Maaloula, they were reportedly moved to the rebel-held town of Yabroud, about 20 km to the north, which is now the focus of a government military operation.

Reuters