More than 65 million people were displaced and had to flee their home countries, according a United Nations reports released on Monday. That staggering figure represents the number of people in Britain and France, according to United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees report. The number of refugees rose by 5.8 million in 2015 over last year’s figure. And the 65 million displaced to date hits a record high , UN officials said.

In a few days, snow will blanket the mountainous areas of Lebanon, where many Syrian refugees live. Throughout the region, a brutal winter is just around the corner, according to weather forecasters. For Syrian refugees living in Lebanon, Jordan and surrounding countries, time is running out. There were 20,000 Syrians living at Zaatari refugee camp when I visited there a year ago. Today, the number exceeds 100,000 crammed into the two-square mile camp. 

For every Syrian who escaped the civil war in his or her homeland by crossing international borders, there are three more displaced within the country. Those who manage to leave become refugees. Those who stay behind remain invisible. But they are part of a growing population of refugees that are often without international support, a sub-group of people whose basic needs are rarely addressed by the global community: the internally displaced. 

One year of revolution has turned into two years of violent conflict that has taken lives on a massive scale – over 100,000 have been killed, including an estimated 7,000 children – and displaced millions of Syrians like Mohamad and Husam. Two weeks ago, the United Nations High Commission for Refuges (UNHCR) announced that over 2 million Syrians have left the country, a plurality (716,000) of which are living in Lebanon (a country of 4 million).