"They have reached the limit of their capacity," said Nada Doumani, a spokeswoman for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Doumani told a press briefing by aid agencies that Iraqi surgeons and medical staff were working round the clock and running low on medicines and surgical equipment including anaesthetics.

"When this conflict started we all said there were sufficient supplies in Baghdad for several weeks at least of normal medical operations," said Iain Simpson, a spokesman for the World Health Organisation (WHO).

"This is not a normal medical situation and so supplies are running very low, particularly emergency supplies," he added.

ICRC was delivering limited emergency stocks in the Iraqi capital, while the WHO said it was trying to gain access for a convoy of trucks from Jordan which was waiting with medical supplies for hospitals in Baghdad.

Power cuts were also hampering work in hospitals and affecting water supplies, which were only being shored up with emergency generators.

"These are very temporary, emergency solutions," Doumani said after contact earlier on Tuesday with the ICRC's office in the Iraqi capital.

"The situation in Baghdad is starting to become critical especially with the power cuts," she added.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a briefing note that the Al-Yarmuk hospital in Baghdad was coping with about 100 wounded an hour.

Another hospital, Mahmudiya, south of Baghdad, was no longer capable of dealing with war wounded, it added.

The aid agencies were not prepared to give an overall estimate of casualties.

"The key is that there is a large volume of civilian casualties," Simpson said.

Aid officials also reiterated warnings about water shortages throughout central and southern Iraq, which are beginning to have a sharp impact on children.

"What we had believed would be a bad scenario is happening, there are more and more children suffering from diarrhoea because of the lack of water, they drink contaminated water," Damien Personnaz, a spokesman for the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said.

There were no reports of cholera, but there was "a high potential for outbreaks", Simpson noted.

The UN refugee agency, which had expected several hundred thousand Iraqis to flee the country, said it had still seen no sign of a mass exodus.

"We still have no information about any major influx into neighbouring countries, we still have a trickle," Kris Janowski, a spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) said.

UNICEF estimated that about 10 percent of Iraqi children could suffer very high levels of psychological trauma after the conflict.

"The worst thing for children is to see their own relatives killed or to suffer," Personnaz said.

SPACE.WIRE