Humanitarian crisis may greet British Army in southern Iraq

The British Army, ill-prepared and unenthusiastic to act in a humanitarian role, could be confronted by a "catastrophic" crisis of hungry and homeless civilians if Tony Blair orders the troops into southern Iraq.

With war apparently imminent, senior British officers are struggling to work out how they will assist thousands of desperate Iraqi civilians while stabilising a region with a long and fierce history. The area is likely to be the scene of bloody infighting and revenge attacks against Iraqi secret police.

Unlike other parts of Iraq, there are no international aid agencies or NGOs (non-governmental organisations) operating in the south. The majority of the population lives off rations provided by the UN oil-for-food programme. Most observers believe this intricately organised system would be severely disrupted in the event of a military operation.

Although aid groups have stored tonnes of food and emergency supplies in countries surrounding Iraq, The Independent has learnt that there are no such supplies in Kuwait, which borders Iraq to the south-east. The Kuwaiti government has made minimal provision to help Iraqi refugees and says it will not open its borders to them. It has told Iraqis to "stay in their homes".

Antonia Paradela, a spokeswoman for the UN World Food Programme's Kuwait office, said: "[The potential for a humanitarian crisis] is massive. Sixty per cent of the Iraqi population live off food vouchers. Even if the war is short there is going to be a large problem. How do you start such a system again?"

The British Army – currently massing in Kuwaiti desert camps close to the Iraqi border – is likely to lead the assault into south-east Iraq and towards the port city of Basra, with the support of the US 15th Marine Expeditionary Unit. It will be the first time that American troops have been under British command since the Second World War.

There is a belief that the British troops, of which there are 26,000 already in Kuwait with a further 20,000 either on ships in the Gulf or at air bases in the region, have been given this task partly because they could then take control of the southern oilfields – a contentious issue from which Washington is trying to distance itself .

Most observers predict that Basra, Iraq's second city, will be heavily bombed. There is also the chance that once the bombing starts, the area's Shia Muslim population could rise up against the army and President Saddam Hussein's non-Shia security forces.

President Bush has called on the Shia to rise up against the Iraqi regime. His father, George Bush Snr, made a similar plea during the 1991 Gulf War only to fail to support the rebellion once it started. Soldiers loyal to President Saddam put down the first rebellion – which had spread from Basra to the holy cities of Najaf and Kerbala – with no mercy. Thousands were slaughtered.

Against this backdrop, the British Army faces the prospect of having to try to help Iraqi civilians whose food, water and electricity supplies will almost certainly have been disrupted or destroyed by coalition bombing. About 60,000 Iraqis are expected to try to flee south towards Kuwait. It is not clear whether there will be any provision for them on the Iraqi side of the border.

British officers – obligated by the 4th Geneva Convention – say they will do what they can to provide humanitarian assistance, though their resources for performing such a task are not vast. They also make clear they do not believe this ought to be the job of a fighting force. Colonel Chris Vernon, the chief army spokesman, said they had undertaken "some humanitarian planning with our limited resources ... but [this should] not be detrimental to our primary military task".

In these circumstances there is obvious friction between aid agencies and the military, which pointed out that until last week there was only one NGO in Kuwait. There are now three. A British Army source said the level of humanitarian support was almost non-existent. The aid groups say they are hampered by a desperate lack of funding and from a lack of information from the military about what they should expect in Iraq. Enda Savage, a spokesman for the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), said the absence of donations was largely the result of opposition to the war by usual donors.

Cassandra Nelson, an officer with the Scottish and US-based charity Mercy Corps, said: "There is a real sense of frustration. People are working around the clock with next to no equipment." She said aid groups were reliant on the military for information and "they have not been forthcoming". She added: "It's going to be catastrophic in terms of human suffering."

Last week, a review by the Commons International Development Select Committee concluded: "The indication is that the scale of humanitarian need will drastically outweigh the funds available."