Geneva - Nearly half a million displaced Syrians have returned to their homes since the beginning of the year, mainly to find family members and check on property, the U.N. refugee agency said Friday. The agency said it had seen "a notable trend of spontaneous returns to and within Syria in 2017." Since January, about 440,000 people who had been displaced within the war-ravaged country had returned to their homes, mainly in Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, Andrej Mahecic, a spokesman for the UNHCR, told reporters. In addition, around 31,000 refugees in neighboring countries had also returned, he said, bringing to 260,000 the number of refugees who have returned to the country since 2015. But Mahecic said this is a mere "fraction" of the 5 million Syrian refugees hosted in the region. He said the main factors prompting the displaced to return home were "seeking out family members, checking on property, and, in some cases, a real or perceived improvement in security conditions in parts of the country."
