NAIROBI Poverty, globalization and the end of the Cold War have fuelled fighting worldwide, with more armed conflict now than at any time since World War II, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said on Friday.

"We don't have a world war, but we have wars all around the world," Reuters quoted the ICRC's Geneva-based Head of Operations Jean-Daniel Tauxe as telling a news conference in the Kenyan capital.

Presenting its annual report, the ICRC said civilians were increasingly targeted in this new wave of violence, with wars fought more and more within states than between them.

Aid workers, too, were facing growing risks.

"The humanitarian needs are increasing as the surface (areas affected by war) and the number of conflicts is increasing," Tauxe said.

"We have to go back to World War II to find such a situation."

The ICRC said it was intervening to help the victims of 25 major armed conflicts around the globe -- places where there was fighting on an almost daily basis -- from Afghanistan to Colombia, and Angola to the Middle East.

It also works in another 35 countries or regions with lower level conflicts or which are still recovering from war.

Poverty, inequality and increasing corruption helped to stoke the upsurge in fighting, Tauxe said. The end of the Cold War was another factor.

"It is certainly linked to a widening gap between those who have and those who do not have, it is linked with globalization," Tauxe said.

"The collapse of the Berlin Wall showed there are more and more opportunities for minorities to express their wish to be autonomous," he added.

In many of these wars, civilians have been the primary victims if not the targets. They have faced massacre and rape, and have been taken hostage, forced from their homes or denied access to water and food.

Seven ICRC workers have also been killed so far this year, six in Congo and one in Sudan. Tauxe said humanitarian work was becoming increasingly dangerous.

"Those dramatic events should not stop humanitarian aid but it cannot be done at all costs," he said.

Tauxe said while the ICRC knew its work was not without risk, it condemned April's murder of the six Red Cross workers in Congo's northeastern Ituri region as barbaric and unacceptable.

The ICRC responded by suspending operations in the area, and Tauxe said he was expecting a full and impartial report on the incident from the Congolese rebel movement of Jean-Pierre Bemba and from the Ugandan army, which together control the region.

The Geneva-based ICRC presented its annual report in Nairobi for the first time to highlight the plight of Africa, which accounts for half of the ICRC's operations and consumes roughly 40 percent of its budget.