"The situation of the right to food in Iraq is of serious concern," the UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said in a report to the UN human rights commission.

Citing previous studies reported last year, Ziegler added that "acute malnutrition amongst Iraqi children under the age of five has almost doubled from four percent to 7.7 percent".

Overall efforts to tackle terror groups and the invasion of Iraq had also drained precious resources away from fighting hunger in poor countries when they should be doing the opposite, the UN expert said.

The wide-ranging report on global food rights also warned that more people could die as aid programmes in crisis areas, notably in Africa, were obliged to cut down food deliveries,

The World Food Programme had cut food rations by about one third in February 2004, bringing them "drastically under" international minimum nutritional standards, according to Ziegler.

"This will bring higher mortality in the camps, because aid is being redirected towards the 'War against Terror'. This is unacceptable," he added.