LONDON: About 470 displaced families departed Hasakah on Thursday for their homes in Ras Al-Ain and its countryside in the Syrian Arab Republic.

In recent weeks, authorities facilitated the voluntary return of 4,028 displaced families via seven convoys, representing about 32.2 percent of Ras Al-Ain’s 12,500 displaced families, according to the Syrian Arab News Agency.

The return followed the clearance of about 70 villages of mines and war remnants in Ras Al-Ain, a border city in northeastern Syria. About 8,472 families remain within the program’s overall target and expect to return to their home areas. The recent convoy is part of the “Syria Without Camps” initiative, which aims to facilitate the return of displaced Syrians.

Syria’s civil war, which erupted in March 2011, forced more than 13 million people across the country from their homes, including more than 6 million refugees outside Syria and more than 7 million people displaced inside the country at various points.

Since the fall of the Bashar Assad regime in a rebel offensive in late 2024, more than 3.5 million Syrians have returned, according to UN figures.