* Aid officials worry about Sadr City residents * Officials deny mass exodus from the Shi'ite slum (Adds details, colour) By Tim Cocks and Waleed Ibrahim BAGHDAD, May 8 (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. 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. SOME FAMILIES FLEE Some families could be seen fleeing Sadr City's battle-scarred streets. A Reuters correspondent saw seven minibuses in different parts of the slum moving with rolled up mattresses, blankets and cooking gas tanks tied to their roofs. Those on the move included many women wearing black robes, traditional clothes of mourning when a family member dies, and two men wailing after their brother was killed in a rocket attack. Tahseen al-Sheikhli, the government's civilian spokesman for security in Baghdad, accused gunmen of attacking aid convoys. "Who is responsible for the deteriorating humanitarian situation in Sadr City? Isn't it the armed groups?" he said. "We have done our best to let food aid reach affected families." Saeed Haqi, head of the Iraqi Red Crescent, said fewer than 1,000 families had fled Sadr City since the operations began. The U.S. military and Iraqi officials denied reports from some residents that security forces had used loudspeakers urging people to leave their homes -- perhaps signalling a major offensive was imminent. "It's nonsense," said Lieutenant-Colonel Steven Stover, a spokesman for the U.S. military in Baghdad. UNICEF Iraq spokeswoman Claire Hajij said 150,000 people were trapped in the worst-affected quarter of the slum, half of them children. Most stayed in their homes for fear of snipers. Maliki, himself a Shi'ite, says the crackdown is to disarm militias but Sadr's followers see it as an attempt to sideline the cleric's mass movement before local elections in October. The prime minister caught his American backers off guard with his offensive in Basra, but after early military setbacks, it has gone well for his forces. Political leaders across Iraq's sectarian and ethnic divide -- apart from the Sadrists, who control 10 percent of seats in parliament -- back his campaign. Sadr, who has a strong following among dispossessed Shi'ites, last month threatened to scrap a truce he imposed on the Mehdi Army in August. A few weeks later he urged his men to observe it, leaving many guessing about his true intentions. (Additional reporting by Aseel Kami, Khalid al-Ansary and Wisam Mohammed; Writing by Tim Cocks and Dean Yates; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Survivors sits in front of their house which was destroyed by Cyclone Nargis, in Bogalay, southwest of Yangon May 7, 2008. Survivors with harrowing tales of villages smashed by cyclone Nargis ...
