Report: African wars cost billions (AP/CNN)

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DAKAR, Senegal (AP) -- About $18 billion a year has been drained from Africa by nearly two dozen wars in recent decades, a new report states, a price some officials say could've helped solve the AIDS crisis and created stronger economies in the world's poorest region.

"This is money Africa can ill afford to lose," Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf wrote in an introduction to the report by the British charity Oxfam and two groups that seek tougher controls on small arms, Saferworld and the International Action Network on Small Arms.

"The sums are appalling: the price that Africa is paying could cover the cost of solving the HIV and AIDS crisis in Africa, or provide education, water and prevention and treatment for tuberculosis and malaria," Sirleaf added. "Literally thousands of hospitals, schools, and roads could have been built."

That war makes economies suffer is nothing new, but few have tried to estimate the real cost across Africa.

Compared to peaceful countries, war-battered African nations have "50 percent more infant deaths, 15 percent more undernourished people, life expectancy reduced by five years, 20 percent more adult illiteracy, 2.5 times fewer doctors per patient and 12.4 percent less food per person," the report estimates.
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more: http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/africa/10/11/africa.billions.ap/index.html