Shafaq News- Damascus

Around 200 Kurdish families on Saturday left Syria’s Hasakah province to return to their homes in Afrin and its countryside under a broader agreement between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Shafaq News correspondent in northeast Syria said dozens of buses and vehicles carrying displaced families departed from Qamishli toward Aleppo's Afrin via the M4 highway under tight security measures, marking the second return coordinated between Damascus and the SDF, following an earlier trip in mid-March that included about 400 families.

The returns will help reopen schools currently used to shelter displaced people ahead of the next academic year, said Ahmad Al-Hilali, spokesperson for the Syrian presidential team tasked with integrating the SDF.

In January, the Syrian government and the SDF reached a comprehensive ceasefire agreement, which includes a gradual integration of military structures between the two sides. The deal also provides for the integration of Autonomous Administration institutions into Syrian state institutions, the retention of civil employees, the settlement of civil and educational rights for the Kurdish community, and guarantees for the return of displaced residents to their hometown.