GENEVA, July 31, 2008 (AFP) - Increased cocaine trafficking through west Africa rivals diamonds as a driver for corruption and armed rebel activity across the region, the UN's Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said Thursday.

'Maps of routes for the traffic of drugs, arms, trafficking of all kinds, and of conflicts, coincide and cross the continent from the west to the east,' Herve Ludovic de Lys, a regional head of OCHA, told media in Geneva.

'Diamonds fed conflicts in Africa, with their stream of humanitarian catastrophes ... Today, it is perhaps the cocaine that comes through Africa destined for Europe,' said de Lys.

Drug-trafficking not only finances rebel groups in the region, but also contributes to corruption at all levels, he added.

West Africa is a strategic transit point for the transport of cocaine because of its relative proximity to South America and a lack of security enforcement in the region, according to the United Nations's Office on Drugs and Crime.

Stricter controls in the North Atlantic and along Europe's coasts have also diverted trafficking towards Africa.

Of the cocaine seized in Africa, 99 percent stems from the West of the continent, according to the UN, which also indicated around 40 tonnes of the drug -- or 27 percent of Europe's consumption -- was transited through this region.