Aid officials urge relief for Baghdad slum

By Tim Cocks and Waleed Ibrahim

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - 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 several hundred 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 believe could eventually 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.