New York (Earth Times) - A Canadian-led study released Wednesday sharply contested claims by a relief organization that conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo since 1998 have killed an estimated 5.4 million people. The study argued that conflict-related deaths, from violent acts to diseases, have dramatically declined in the past decade due to the advance in effective healthcare services and quick humanitarian intervention to people affected by the fighting.
The Shrinking Costs of War took issue with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that conflict-related deaths in Congo from 1998 to 2007 stood at 5.4 million.
Although the Canadian researchers did not give its own estimated total number of deaths, it cited two cases in which they corrected IRC death estimates downward: In one case, the death figure dropped from 1.6 million to 680,000 - or a 60-per-cent decline; in the second case, the death figure dropped from 2.8 million to less than 900,000.
The Shrinking Costs of War study also challenged high death figures in the conflicts in Iraq and Sudan's Darfur region, but the study did not give details of those figures.
"The decline in peacetime mortality has been dramatic," the study said. "Under five mortality - for which we have the best data - has fallen worldwide by some 60 per cent since 1960."
The study said the IRC estimate of child mortality during the period was double that of the Demographic and Health Survey. The study said IRC's two initial surveys on war casualties used samples of population that did not represent a larger population of war-affected areas.
IRC, which carried out a total of five surveys on war fatalities in Congo, had made methodological errors that led to a "large and unwarranted increases of the excess death estimates" and had relied on low pre-war mortality rates, which distorted the results "very substantially," the Canadian study said.
It attributed the decline in deaths to the worldwide campaign of low-cost, but highly effective lifesaving health intervention like immunization against deadly diseases that once killed tens of millions of children in developing countries.
"As immunization coverage goes up, child mortality rates in war zones go down," the study said.
The study was a project of the School for International Studies at Frazer University, British Columbia, and funded by Britain, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It is part of the Canadian government's annual Human Security Report that will be issued at a later date.
In the case of Congo, the study said immunization against measles was given to 80 per cent of the population in need in 2007, up from 20 per cent in 1998, the year the war started.
The Shrinking Costs of War study said the most important factor in the decline of wartime mortality is the changing nature of warfare - from the involvement of huge, heavy conventional weapons during the Cold War era to the "low intensity insurgencies" in recent decades.
"The average war in the new millennium generates 90 per cent fewer battle deaths than did the average war in the 1950s," the study said.
The Shrinking Costs of War took issue with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) estimates that conflict-related deaths in Congo from 1998 to 2007 stood at 5.4 million.
Although the Canadian researchers did not give its own estimated total number of deaths, it cited two cases in which they corrected IRC death estimates downward: In one case, the death figure dropped from 1.6 million to 680,000 - or a 60-per-cent decline; in the second case, the death figure dropped from 2.8 million to less than 900,000.
The Shrinking Costs of War study also challenged high death figures in the conflicts in Iraq and Sudan's Darfur region, but the study did not give details of those figures.
"The decline in peacetime mortality has been dramatic," the study said. "Under five mortality - for which we have the best data - has fallen worldwide by some 60 per cent since 1960."
The study said the IRC estimate of child mortality during the period was double that of the Demographic and Health Survey. The study said IRC's two initial surveys on war casualties used samples of population that did not represent a larger population of war-affected areas.
IRC, which carried out a total of five surveys on war fatalities in Congo, had made methodological errors that led to a "large and unwarranted increases of the excess death estimates" and had relied on low pre-war mortality rates, which distorted the results "very substantially," the Canadian study said.
It attributed the decline in deaths to the worldwide campaign of low-cost, but highly effective lifesaving health intervention like immunization against deadly diseases that once killed tens of millions of children in developing countries.
"As immunization coverage goes up, child mortality rates in war zones go down," the study said.
The study was a project of the School for International Studies at Frazer University, British Columbia, and funded by Britain, Norway, Sweden and Switzerland. It is part of the Canadian government's annual Human Security Report that will be issued at a later date.
In the case of Congo, the study said immunization against measles was given to 80 per cent of the population in need in 2007, up from 20 per cent in 1998, the year the war started.
The Shrinking Costs of War study said the most important factor in the decline of wartime mortality is the changing nature of warfare - from the involvement of huge, heavy conventional weapons during the Cold War era to the "low intensity insurgencies" in recent decades.
"The average war in the new millennium generates 90 per cent fewer battle deaths than did the average war in the 1950s," the study said.
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