AMMAN, Dec. 12 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) on Wednesday appealed to donors to continue to fund programmes in host countries like Jordan at the same level as they did before.

"Support for Syria needs to be stepped up but not at the expense of host countries," Stefano Severe, UNHCR representative in Jordan said in a statement emailed to Xinhua.

"We anticipated that it is not so good in 2018, but now we are coming close to the end of the year so we have seen sufficient support," according to Severe.

"For 2019, we continue to be a little bit worried, especially as funding needs to rebuild Syria continue to grow. We can only encourage donors to continue to support us here in Jordan," he added.

On the number of refugees returning to Syria, Severe said that from 2016 to June 2018, when the border closed because of the offensive in southwestern Syria, around 17,000 refugees were recorded returning to Syria.

"We have seen peaks and troughs on the situation in certain areas in Syria. When the peace accord was signed in August 2017, we saw a spike in the numbers of refugees going back. This year, however, before June, only 1,800 refugees have been recorded going back," he said.

"At UNHCR, we have managed to confirm and verify through our database that 3,852 refugees have returned to Syria between Oct. 15 and Dec. 1," he added.

Out of the 3,852 refugees who have returned since the reopening of Jaber border crossing between Jordan and Syria, around 50 percent are from the Daraa region which has seen relatively stable over the last few months, according to Severe.

According to official figures, there are 1.3 million Syrian refugees in Jordan.