By Tim Cocks and Waleed Ibrahim
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Civilians caught up in fighting betweensecurity forces and Shi'ite militiamen in a Baghdad slum arerunning out of food, water and medicine and relief agencies areunable to bring in supplies, officials said on Thursday.
But aid officials and an Iraqi government spokesman deniedreports there had been a mass displacement of residents fromSadr City, home to 2 million people and the stronghold ofShi'ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr's Mehdi Army militia.
They said it was too dangerous to get aid into the districtin eastern Baghdad, where weeks of clashes have killed hundredsof people. Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, seeking to impose lawand order, launched a crackdown on militias in late March.
Dana Graber Ladek, a displacement specialist on Iraq at theU.N. International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in Amman,said around 500 families had fled when U.S. and Iraqioperations against militiamen began.
"Since then, very few Iraqis have been able to leave due tocurfews and ... insecurity," Ladek said by telephone.
"We need that corridor open to allow aid in, by U.S. andIraqi forces ... by everyone involved in the conflict."
Ladek said relief was need urgently. Public distribution offood rations had stopped while prices of basic food items wererising.
Water and medical services were also falling short in theaffected areas, especially since a U.S. missile strike near aSadr City hospital on Saturday damaged a number of ambulances.
"Much ... depends on how long this (conflict) goes on for... If it goes on for very long ... we risk some more seriousconsequences like an epidemic of cholera or malnutrition."
Maliki's crackdown was initially launched in the southernShi'ite city of Basra, where the Mehdi Army put up stiffresistance for a week until Sadr ordered his fighters off thestreet. But fighting has continued in Baghdad's Sadr City.
Tahseen al-Sheikhli, the government's civilian spokesmanfor security operations in Baghdad, accused gunmen of attackingconvoys trying to bring aid in.
"Who is responsible for the deteriorating humanitariansituation in Sadr City? Isn't it the armed groups?" he said.
"We have done our best to let food aid reach affectedfamilies but they are in areas of fighting and we can't evensend forces to secure them because militants will attack us."
Saeed Haqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said fewer than1,000 families had fled Sadr City since the operations began,adding that most of those had gone to stay with relatives.
LOUDSPEAKER WARNING?
Some residents said Iraqi security forces had usedloudspeakers urging people to leave their homes -- perhapssignalling a major offensive was imminent -- but Sheikhli and aspokesman from Sadr's office in the slum denied this.
Iraqi security officials gave conflicting accounts ofwhether loudspeakers had been used to warn people to flee whilethe U.S. military said it had no information on the reports.
Maliki, himself a Shi'ite, says the crackdown is to disarmmilitias, but Sadr's followers sees it as an attempt tosideline the cleric's mass movement before local elections inOctober.
The prime minister caught his American backers off-guardwith his offensive in Basra, but after early military setbacks,it has gone well. Political leaders across Iraq's sectarian andethnic divide -- apart from the Sadrists, who control 10percent of seats in parliament -- have backed Maliki'scampaign.
Sadr last month threatened to formally scrap a ceasefire heimposed on the Mehdi Army last August. But then a couple ofweeks later he urged his followers to observe the truce,leaving many guessing about his true intentions.
Sadr, in his 30s, is a fervent nationalist who has azealous following among young and dispossessed Shi'ites.
(Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Khalid al-Ansary andWisam Mohammed; writing by Tim Cocks and Dean Yates, editing byRalph Boulton)
