If you want to have your heart broken, on any day or evening, then please watch the European news channels. Without fail, every evening news bulletin carries images and stories of Africans dying in flimsy, dangerous boats crossing the Mediterranean Sea trying to reach the shores of Europe.Those who land in places such as France and Italy then risk life and limb trying to get further away from their home continent: to Britain, to Germany or elsewhere. They are often arrested, assaulted, harassed and chased back home - only to try again.By July 1 more than 137000 migrants had reached southern Europe by boat this year, says the UN High Commission for Refugees.Italy and Greece have borne the brunt of the arrivals: 54000 arrived in Italy and 48000 in Greece, said the high commission.Thousands others end up elsewhere on European shores: clinging to rocks, spat on and regarded with hate and contempt by locals. On June 6 and 7 alone, 6000 people, floating in the sea were taken to Italy.Many of the migrants are from Syria, where a savage war is unfolding. The rest, and many of those one sees on television, are from our continent: Eritrea, Somalia, Sudan, Nigeria, Chad and Tunisia. When I watch some of these scenes shot in the refugee camps I am reminded of how the aliens were treated in the movie District 9.President Jacob Zuma gets a lot of stick from many of us. He is a man of many weaknesses and many mistakes. But, of all African leaders, it is he, in the recent past, who has shown some courage on this issue.Zuma has twice this year confronted African leaders about an issue no others will confront head-on: Why are Africans in their hundreds of thousands fleeing their own lands?Speaking at the African Union summit in Johannesburg only three weeks ago, Zuma said: "In recent times, we have all witnessed painful and shameful images of our African brothers, sisters, mothers, fathers and children dying during unsafe passage across the Mediterranean Sea ..."This is an indictment of all of us and calls on us to realise that, although we have done so much to improve the living standards of our people, there is a need to double our efforts."One hopes the leaders of the continent were listening.This is an issue that goes to the heart of the Omar al-Bashir matter and many others. Why have we stood by Robert Mugabe - in both the Mbeki and now the Zuma years - when millions of his fellow Zimbabweans have voted with their feet? Millions of Zimbabweans are in Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and South Africa because Mugabe has ruined their chances in their home country. If they were nearer Europe, they would have risked the Mediterranean.Many cross the crocodile-infested Limpopo River in similar desperation. Their actions are not those of crazy people but of people who hate their country.They are the actions of people who have reached the end of their tether. They are the actions of people who want to build a life for their children. These are people who have been left no choice by Mugabe or the leaders of many other similarly failed or failing states.African leaders need to realise that their own people are risking death because they - the African leaders - have failed them spectacularly. Our people are tired of wars, hunger, corruption and starvation. Our people need peace, development and democracy.There is a tendency on the continent to band together and claim some sort of African victimhood. Sure, colonialism was a horrible thing. Sure, we have fought and triumphed against what colonisation and apartheid did to us.But, to paraphrase former ANC leader Smuts Ngonyama, we did not struggle to be colonised by our African brothers. We fought for a proud, equitable, sustainable, progressive South Africa, and an Africa whose citizens feel at home in their countries.Africans do not need dictators and strongmen. They do not need leaders who stay on way longer than their people need them.Most of all, they need governments of the people, for the people. The AU needs to realise that the idea that it can keep protecting tyrants such as Bashir is obsolete.African leaders need to speak up and act with honesty and integrity now.Their people are voting by taking the deadly crossing to Europe. They are saying: "You have failed us." There can be no greater indictment of Africa and its leaders than the images of those boats trying to cross the Mediterranean.The images of those desperate and suffering Africans makes one want to weep. It is also the most powerful call to action I have yet witnessed...