About 1,000 Algerian families settled in Syria have returned home as regime forces battle rebels across the country, the foreign ministry said on Sunday.

"One thousand Algerian families have so far left Syria by their own means,"  foreign ministry spokesman Amar Belani told the national news agency APS.
"For the thousand families still left, Air Algerie is offering big  discounts (of 30 percent) for those less well off to use the Damascus-Algiers route," the spokesman said.

Belani said a crisis cell has been set up at the ministry to follow the conflict in Syria and the situation of the Algerian community in the country.