Last winter I found myself on the Lebanon-Syria border.

There in a place called Machta Hamoud on a windswept patch of open ground nestling between the hills near the frontier, I came across a cluster of tents where Syrian refugees had made camp. Just a few hours earlier the area had come under rocket-fire from Syrian territory less than two miles away.

"They exploded there," said one man pointing to a muddy area of chewed up earth less than 100 yards away from a tent in which a young couple were sheltering with their newborn baby.

It was not the first nor the last time I would be reminded of how much the conflict in Syria still holds a grip on its people, even though they might appear to be living beyond the war's reach.

Let's be candid here, as dreadful an indictment as it is, it doesn't take the latest new report, 'Failing Syria,' compiled by the UN, human rights and humanitarian agencies to tell us what we already suspected, that the world has failed miserably the victims of Syria's war. As the report says in its own words, that failure is a 'stain on the conscience of the international community'.

As I know all too well, cold statistics can never fully convey the extent of the suffering of any war, but those contained in this latest Syria report would however make even the most jaded of observers pause for thought.

In the 12 months since the unanimous adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2139, calling for an urgent increase in access to humanitarian aid and demands that all parties immediately cease attacks on civilians, these same Syrians have experienced a living hell.

More than 11.6 million of them are now in urgent need of clean water and nearly ten million do not have enough to eat. Children as ever have borne the brunt of the suffering with as many as 5.6 million in need of humanitarian assistance. Many of these children live in the scarcely believable ruins of towns and cities barely existing under a terrifying arc of rockets, bombs and shells for months or years on end.

I've lost count of the times when those refugees who have escaped to places like Lebanon or Turkey have told me of the killing, kidnapping, rape, torture and other abuses their communities have been subjected too.

I will never forget as told to me by her surviving family the story of Fatima, a young mother who turned back to her house to retrieve important identification documents after she and her children had fled their home.

Fatima was never to rejoin her family having been gunned down by a sniper as she entered the house in search of the documents she knew would be crucial in their futuret life as refugees.

Then there was Ishtar whose neighbourhood was four months under siege and near constant bombardment.

During those months, up to 70 people died in Ishtar's district and many more were wounded, but there was nothing more than basic first-aid kits with which to treat them.

"After that we just watched them die," she told me one day as we sat in the winter cold of Lebanon's hills.

These are the lives beyond those statistics even if the figures themselves give us some idea of the scale of the suffering.

According to the latest report it's estimated that more than 212,000 people are still living in these besieged locations and 4.8 million in areas that aid agencies reach only occasionally or not at all.

In its findings the report rightly points out too that UN Security Council resolutions have rung hollow for countless Syrians like Ishtar whose stories have all become variations on the common themes of death, displacement and flight.

So much then for the problems faced, what then to be done? Well perhaps a start could be made in halting the vast quantities of arms and ammunition transferred from regional and international powers.

There is no getting away from the fact that over 90 percent of the arms in Syria were manufactured in countries that are permanent members of the UN Security Council.

Sceptics will of course say that this is all very easy to suggest but harder implementing, and they would be right.

Indeed, the Failing Syria report itself is not short of pointers on 'What needs to be done', but less clear on just how this can be achieved on the ground.

In the meantime from an individual and community perspective we must do all we can to offer our compassion and generosity to those millions of Syrians who faced exodus and exile from their homeland through no fault of their own.

Ultimately though, the primary responsibility for the implementation of the resolutions that could resolve this war and the failure to do so lies with the parties to the conflict.

Pressure from every conceivable diplomatic and humanitarian quarter must now be brought to bear to make such parties think again.

As the tireless former UN and Arab States Peace Envoy, Lakhdar Brahimi, recently observed: "There are plans of war ... there are no peace plans ...I don't see anybody saying "let's stop fighting and let's talk".