Clare Short warns of 'serious crisis' as fighting delays supplies to the south

Emergency food and medical aid is unlikely to arrive in southern Iraq until this weekend at the earliest, British ministers and military command- ers made clear yesterday.

Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, admitted it would be "difficult to avoid a serious humanitarian crisis" if the UN oil-for-food programme was not restarted soon.

Ms Short, Tony Blair and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, confirmed it would take "several days" for Royal Navy minehunters to clear a safe path for aid supplies to Umm Qasr. The deep-water port is the best access point for aid and the Royal Fleet Auxiliary ship Sir Galahad is waiting offshore to deliver food, water, blankets and medical supplies.

Mr Hoon said coalition forces may also bring in humanitarian supplies by air or land as a stop-gap.

Tomorrow the UN will launch a $1.9bn (£1.2bn) "flash appeal" for emergency funds for Iraq and Britain is expected to give several millions.

The best means of funding long-term humanitarian aid will be through restoration of the UN's $10bn-a-year oil-for-food (OFF) programme, on which 16 million Iraqis depend for survival.

Ms Short said in an emergency Commons statement that she hoped OFF could be restored "within days" through a new Security Council resolution authorising Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, to operate the programme instead of the Iraqi government. But the first aid shipments will not be from aid agencies or the UN but directly from the Ministry of Defence.

Mr Hoon said the Royal Navy's mine counter-measures task group, which includes mine clearance divers, had begun checking the Khawr Abd Allah waterway into Umm Qasr. Continuing resistance by Iraqi forces in the port was another obstacle. "I am not going to allow ships into dangerous port areas while there is still fighting," he said.

Hundreds of British soldiers, with advisers from the Department for International Development, are ready to begin distributing aid as soon as it can be landed. Soldiers from 102 Logistic Brigade will get the supplies to 12 distribution points in parts of Iraq under UK control, and 23 Pioneer Regiment will oversee delivery of the aid at the dozen distribution points. They already have major supplies, including 10 tankers containing 158,000 litres of water and 75,000 days of rations waiting close to the Kuwaiti border to help meet immediate needs.

The British aid effort will also provide shovels, sheeting and wire that Iraqi civilians can use to repair their homes and help themselves. A water pipeline will be built from Kuwait to southern Iraq as part of what has been dubbed a "Marshall Plan" for Iraq in a deliberate echo of the US-aided project to rebuild European after the Second World War.

Ms Short, in her first Commons performance since her threat to quit the Government, said there was a "sense of regret and dismay" at the UN, the IMF and World Bank about divisions in the international community's handling of the Iraq crisis.