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The Syrian government on Tuesday called for refugees to return, saying that it has managed to clear large areas of "terrorists".
The rare appeal reflects the growing confidence of the government after more than seven years of war. While officials generally call on Syrians abroad to come back during television appearances and interviews, this is the first official call broadcast on the official media.
Syrian government forces, with crucial support from Russia and Iran, have recently resumed large areas near the capital, Damascus, and are conducting a new offensive in the south that, according to officials the UN, has displaced more than 270,000 people.
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The UN Security Council on Thursday scheduled private consultations on the offensive and rapidly worsening humanitarian situation in the south-west at the request of Sweden and Kuwait.
The government currently controls over 61% of Syria, compared to early 2017, when it held only 17%, according to the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights based in Great Britain. Britain, which closely monitors the conflict.
The government calls all rebels "terrorists".
More than 5.6 million Syrians have fled the country. The Foreign Ministry says many displaced people have already returned home, calling on refugees to do the same.
Many Syrians are unable to return because their homes were destroyed in the fighting, or because they fear military conscription or the retribution of government forces.
Also on Tuesday, a senior UN official visited a Palestinian refugee camp in Damascus that government forces resumed in May. The Yarmouk camp, a built-up residential area that once housed tens of thousands of Palestinians and Syrians, has been held by the Islamic State group and other insurgents for years, and has seen fierce fighting.
"The magnitude of the destruction in Yarmouk compares to little that I have seen for many years of humanitarian work in conflict zones," said Pierre Krahenbuhl, the commissioner general of the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.
The camp, which housed 160,000 Palestinian refugees, is now in ruins. Krahenbuhl, during a three-day visit, also met with displaced Palestinian refugees in the vicinity of Damascus.
They expressed "fears" about the prospects for their return and reconstruction, he said.
Krahenbuhl said the US funding cuts had created "the largest funding gap ever recorded in the history of UNRWA". The agency has a deficit of $ 446 million, he said, and has since mobilized to raise $ 200 million through the intermediary of other donors. He said the priority is to keep schools around Syria open to Palestinian refugees.
UNRWA provides basic services to Palestinian refugees from what is now Israel and their descendants, currently numbering 5 million, scattered in the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and in Jordan.
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