As much of the world continues to look on in outrage as the Syrian regime continues its bloody campaign against the country’s dissents, the mettle of many of the world’s leaders is being put increasingly to the test.

With each passing day, it is becoming more and more apparent that nothing short of a military intervention in Syria will bring the bloodshed to an end. And with yesterday’s pullout of United Nations observers, who entered the country as part of Kofi Annan’s six-point peace plan, it is hard to imagine how many other avenues are available to the international community to bring the bloodshed to a halt.

In fact, since accepting Annan’s six-point peace plan on 27 March, the Syrian regime appears to have done precious little but play for time while simply increasing its attacks on its opponents.

According to the UN peace plan, drawn up by former secretary general and UN and Arab League envoy to Syria, Kofi Annan, the drawback of Syrian forces was to have been followed by a full ceasefire by both sides. The ceasefire was to then lead to an observer mission and talks between both sides on the country’s future.

That much has happened, but the observer mission was brought to an abrupt end yesterday because of exponentially increasing violence − leaving the peace plan in shambles and the way forward in a lurch.

And in the meantime, the onslaught by Syrian President Bashar Assad continues unabated.

Since the conflict began in March of last year with peaceful protests challenging the regime, activists say some 14,000 people have been killed. Syria, it cannot be denied, is now well and truly rushing headlong towards an even bloodier civil war.

As experience from the Libyan uprising has shown, ceasefire agreements are hardly worth the paper they are written on and, as in the case of Libya, it is becoming increasingly apparent that nothing but coercive and concerted action by the international community may very well be the only way of bringing an end to the killing.

If the regime’s continued assaults on civilians are anything to go by, it will not be long before nothing short of concrete, coercive and concerted action by the international community will make the regime change its ways.

Our borders and their lives

In a damning indictment, Amnesty International this week accused European member states of choosing to protect their borders over protecting the lives of those who would a seek asylum in the bloc, and it alleged that Europe is actively preventing Africans from reaching its shores by boat.

Complaints along such lines are a dime a dozen, and the government at every opportunity attempts to discredit what the human rights organisation, the world’s largest, has to say about the multiple facets of this sad situation, but the truth of the matter is that when Amnesty International speaks, many, millions in fact, listen.

Sadly, it is difficult, try as one might, to disagree with what Amnesty is alleging. All evidence points to the fact that European governments have continuously endangered the lives of those wishing to seek asylum in Europe by their desire to keep such asylum seekers away from their shores. Italy’s infamous pushback policy is a case in point.

Although that push back policy had served to nearly eradicate the arrival of boat people to Malta, this newspaper has always argued that these people’s human rights were being grossly violated. That stance was proved right recently when the European Court of Human Rights deemed the practice illegal.

Amnesty’s report comes as part of the human rights group’s campaign aimed at holding to account European countries that practise human rights violations in the way it enforces migration controls, and coincides with the inception of an online public petition.

Europe, the report charges, is failing to promote and respect the rights of migrants, asylum seekers and refugees. Hostility towards such individuals, it says, is widespread and their mistreatment at the hands of European authorities often goes unreported.

In 2011 alone, the report points out, at least 1,500 people drowned in the Mediterranean Sea, a very concerning figure rendered more concerning still by Amnesty’s claim that many of those deaths could have been avoided had appropriate and timely rescue measures been implemented.

Malta, it should be pointed out, is one of the main states that deal with the rescuing of migrants from the Mediterranean, and the country has recently argued that between 2002 and February of this year it has saved the lives of almost 15,000 irregular migrants who have been brought ashore to Malta.

Over the past 10 years, the Amnesty report states, European countries have begun implementing various border control measures outside their own territories, in other countries or on the high seas.

Amnesty’s campaign for European Parliamentarians to hold national governments to account for the mistreatment of migrants is nothing new; several MEPs have been doing so for many years now mainly on their own steam.

But with the backing of the world’s largest human rights organisation, they just might get somewhere this time around.