Allies charged with 'starvation warfare'

A UNITED Nations human rights investigator yesterday accused British and US forces in Iraq of breaching international law by depriving civilians of food and water in besieged cities as they tried to flush out militants.

But the US military denied the charge and said that while supplies were sometimes disrupted by combat, food was never deliberately withheld.

Jean Ziegler, a former Swiss sociology professor who is UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said the Geneva Conventions banned military forces from using "starvation of civilians as a method of warfare".

But he said that in Fallujah, Tal Afar and Samarra, Iraqi and US-led forces had cut off or restricted food and water to encourage residents to flee before assaults on entrenched Sunni insurgents over the past year.

"A drama is taking place in total silence in Iraq, where the coalition's occupying forces are using hunger and deprivation of water as a weapon of war against the civilian population," Mr Ziegler said.

He described their actions as a "flagrant violation of international humanitarian law".

Lieutenant Colonel Steve Boylan, a spokesman for the US military in Iraq, said Mr Ziegler's accusations were baseless, although

he admitted some supplies had been delayed "due to combat operations".

Additional reporting by Luke Baker in Baghdad