'We want this over in a minute. We just want a basic life and to drink good water'

"The government is like a snake. If you go to it, it will attack you – just stay away," explained Sughaier wearily.

Years of persecution and deprivation – of watching their young men taken away to fight another war they barely comprehend – has taught the Shia Marsh Arabs who inhabit this desolate section of Iraq's western desert to keep a low profile. Sughaier – who has three children, and who looks decades older than his 45 years – has learnt this lesson well.

In recent days the British Army's Cimic (civilian military co-operation) team has arrived to assess how these tribal farming communities are faring.

Despite their remote way of life, they provide a vital link in the local food chain, selling their wares in weekly markets. The military's humanitarian arm is hoping to re-establish the supply route as quickly as possible, providing immediate necessities while building a foundation for the aid agencies which will follow.

Driving along the main route to Baghdad – a three-lane motorway now deserted except for military convoys and the odd battered pick-up truck – there is little evidence of life across the vast, unbroken expanse of sand. It is only when the eye adjusts that countless mud and brick dwellings, with reed or corrugated iron roofs, appear dotted across the landscape. Behind them, lush green plots provide a shock of vivid colour in an otherwise monochrome world.

Their marshes destroyed by the construction of canals, many of the indigenous Arabs fled to surrounding countries after the 1991 Gulf War. Those who remained lend a new meaning to the adage that necessity is the mother of invention. An estimated 900 simple shacks – containing families numbering between five and 20 – are spread across the land, split into tribes which are largely governed by the local sheikh.

Ancient generators, tied together with strips of cloth, rattle as they pump the salty local water through basic irrigation systems and around small plots that grow tomatoes, small cucumbers, onions and melons – culinary luxury in an otherwise hand-to-mouth existence.

War has hit the Marsh Arabs hard. Fresh water supplies are scarce – as is the flour with which they make the unleavened bread that comprises their staple diet.

Markets have closed down, while the handful of government-supplied teachers in their one-room school fled a week ago, along with the doctor.

At the mere mention of the word peace, Sughaier kissed his bunched fingers and touched them to his forehead.

"Yes, my God. We want this over in a minute. We just want to live a basic life and drink good water. Thirty years ago it was much better. Now it is suffocating, taking our children to fight wars.

"Sometimes the army would just come here and destroy the farms. We didn't know why but you can't say no because you will die. Some of the people were scared, frightened they would be harmed, so they left. They went to Iran, Jordan or Syria," he said.

One of the few non-farmers within the hamlet community of a dozen houses, Sughaier collects and repairs tyres – so ancient that they intermittently explode in the heat – for the rusty pick-ups used to transport the community's wares.

He lives in a two-room shack surrounded by a small courtyard containing a collection of chickens, some goats and a rather vocal donkey.

In one room, a rusty iron cot with flaking paint was placed beside a row of sleeping mats on the dusty floor. A few framed, yellowing family pictures hang on the wall next to an old bookcase decorated with paper flowers, rugs and ceramic jugs.

The second room is dominated by a pot-bellied stove, surrounded by ancient oil cans and a lethal-looking gas canister where Sughaier's wife – swathed in black, with the tattooed dots of the tribe on her face – makes bread for the unexpected guests.

Sughaier – too afraid to give his full name – was remarkably up to date with current events. Small radios bring in the news, passed swiftly by word of mouth amongst the men who gather in any available shade. "There is no Iraq radio, we listen to the news from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia," he said.

With the tact of a people who have survived apparently endless incoming armies, the men of the village praised Britain to the soldiers – who were still carrying weapons and wore full body armour in anticipation of any pockets of resistance in the area. They also praised Kuwait to the interpreter brought in from that country.

Many had sought jobs in the far wealthier state to the south before being forced to return through lack of work and the threat of having their passports withdrawn.

In truth it was obvious they cared little for who was in charge of a country of which they see only a small patch. "Whoever helps us, God bless him. War is not worth it, people die. We don't want it," said Sughaier.

Lifting the long shirt-like dish-dash that most of the men wear, he showed off the crude, splintered wooden leg which replaced the one he lost in the Iran-Iraq war.

"They took our children to fight in all these wars. They took our boys and put them in uniforms and sent them to war. I can't count how many we lost, there are so many. There are some houses with nobody left, just the mother and father," he said.

Saddam Hussein, he said, had three armies – the feared Republican Guard, the regulars and the older men enlisted falsely to be part of the "liberate Jerusalem" force.

"This time the radio asked for people by name. If you did not go they would come and pick you up," he said.

Another man estimated that 300 were "taken" in the Iran-Iraq war, more during the last Gulf conflict and 50 in the latest enlistment. "This time the people were frightened. They ran away," he said.

There are undoubted memories of the Shia rebellion, which was brutally crushed when the Allies failed to come to their support after the 1991 Gulf War. "People are frightened to speak," one young farmer said. "If Saddam survives he may shoot my family."

The task of bringing initial aid to these people falls to Captain Dai Jones, 28, from the Queen's Royal Lancers, who heads up the Cimic team attached to the 16 Air Assault Brigade. More accustomed to combat than aid work, he admitted initial scepticism about the humanitarian role he was asked to play. "I am finding it fascinating and it can only get more rewarding as things start to happen. Everything is still in its infancy," he said.

Over the next few weeks he plans to liaise between the marsh people and the local villages, providing the former with a forum in which to sell their goods and buy flour, the latter with an opportunity to get hold of fresh produce. He will also bring the clean water and medical care they requested.

"They know what is going on but they don't care, they are just concerned about their trade links. We want to give them the ability to help themselves more than anything. We will try and provide a short-term solution until the aid agencies can look into long-term measures.

"We received an amazing welcome. As one of the colonels said, they embarrass you with their generosity. If they have got three days' worth of flour left they won't let you leave without taking some bread."

As Captain Jones and his team approached one house yesterday, an elderly-looking woman could be seen peering over the wall, a young baby wearing a woolly bobble hat in her arms.

While she ducked out of sight, her husband – a jovial character with a roguish smile – invited everyone in for tiny glasses of sweet tea, served in saucers bearing Japanese paintings.

"We just want to be left to grow our tomatoes. We need water and we need gas," explained the man, who had 11 children. He was most upset by the fact that one of the elderly men died this week without a shroud in which to bury him properly.

When asked where his allegiances lay, he was unwilling to publicly denounce President Saddam, attempting instead to hint at support for the Allied forces. But as the group said their goodbyes, he gestured the interpreter into a side room before explaining in conspiratorial tones: "We don't like Saddam but we are afraid somebody from the government will come and harm us."

Asked why he did not feel he could express such sentiments within the confines of his own home, he simply pointed to one of his neighbours. He had turned up at the door of the shack within moments of the soldiers' arrival.