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A new report: The Shrinking Costs of War, launched today by Andrew Mack from the Human Security Report Project reveals the shocking truth that nationwide death rates actually fall during the course of most of today's armed conflicts. The study was funded by the British, Norwegian, Swedish and Swiss governments.

"What we did here was take the average number of battle deaths per conflict per year by decade from 1950-20007 and saw a huge decline. There has been a decrease in numbers because the wars being fought today are much smaller than those in the Cold War years," said Mack.

"Today's wars, or low intense insurgencies, are smaller armies, poorly trained, lightly armed and highly localized. "

Countries saddled with armed conflict appear from the study to have declining mortality rates. In Angola, under five mortality was used as the best gauge of mortality. "If children are dying, a direct link is made to overall deaths in a country," added Mack.

Based on the figures from the study, Angola mortality rates dropped dramatically during wartime, the same went for Liberia and Uganda. Moreover, the study underscores that improved health conditions throughout the developing world are drawing death rates down. The big decline is also due to the vast increase in immunizations rates during periods of peace and breast feeding which protects children from diarrheal diseases and acute respiratory infections.

Mack also cited humanitarian assistance which he says has tripled across the globe and reduced the deadliness of armed conflicts. "It is more professional and cost effective," he pointed out.

He admitted that Rwanda remained a different story where humanitarian assistance was slow and international intervention appalling. Mack added that the survey conducted by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) which claimed 5.4 million died in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) from 1998 to 2007 "is greatly inflated." The study also suggests the IRC's figure of 2.83 million from the period of 2001-2007 is also too high. The study estimates only 900,000 deaths during that period. It suggests the IRC survey was inaccurate because it did not take into account pre-war mortality rates and the fact that the DRC suffered before 1998 economically and from corruption so that is was completely cut off from all aid in the 1990's.

"The IRC was obviously not delighted with our study," Mack added. He added the IRC will stick to their original figures and not make any changes or revisions based on the study.

As Mack emphasized, the overall goal of the report a is to move toward a more evidence-based system that gives reliable information based on pre-existing impact assessments.

A full copy of the report is available on: http://www.humansecurityreport.info.