Civilians caught up in fighting between security forces and Shi'ite militiamen in a Baghdad slum are running out of food, water and medicines and relief agencies are unable to bring in supplies, officials said on Thursday.
Aid officials and an Iraqi government spokesman denied reports there had been a mass displacement of residents from Sadr City, home to 2 million people and the stronghold of Shi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.
They said it was too dangerous to get aid into the eastern Baghdad district, where hundreds of people have been killed in weeks of clashes. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking to impose law and order, launched a crackdown on militias in late March that some analysts believed could trigger an all-out showdown with Sadr.
Dana Graber Ladek, an Iraq specialist at the U.N. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Amman, said 500 families fled when U.S. and Iraqi operations began.
"Since then, very few Iraqis have been able to leave due to curfews and insecurity," Ladek said by phone. "We need that corridor opened to allow aid in by U.S. and Iraqi forces, by everyone involved in the conflict."
Ladek said relief was needed urgently. Public distribution of food rations had stopped and food prices were rising.
Water and medical services were running short in the affected areas, especially since a U.S. missile strike near a Sadr City hospital on Saturday damaged a number of ambulances.
"If (the conflict) goes on for very long we risk some more serious consequences like an epidemic of cholera or malnutrition," Ladek said.
Maliki's crackdown was initially launched in the southern Shi'ite city of Basra, where the Mehdi Army put up stiff resistance for a week until Sadr ordered his fighters off the street. Fighting has continued in Baghdad.
The U.S. military said it had killed 17 militants in various battles around Baghdad since Wednesday, mostly using helicopter strikes to respond to attacks on ground forces.
GUNMEN ACCUSED OF BLOCKING AID
