Harare, Dec. 13 : Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has accused Britain of waging "biological warfare" against his people through a cholera outbreak that has killed at least 800 people so far.

Health officials in South Africa have said that Zimbabwe''s cholera epidemic is now of a "massive magnitude".

Mugabe has long sought to portray the suffering of his country''s people as the result of a dispute between London and his own government, blaming the former colonial power for a range of ills. But the cholera claim is further and more bizarre than his Zanu-PF party has ever gone before.

The country's Information Minister, Sikhanyiso Ndlovu, said: "The cholera epidemic in Zimbabwe is a serious biological, chemical war force, a genocidal onslaught, on the people of Zimbabwe by the British."

"This was calculated warfare. There are forces who are continuing to plant anthrax and cholera disease. Cholera is a calculated, racist attack on Zimbabwe by the unrepentant former colonial power, which has enlisted support from its American and Western allies so that they can invade the country," The Telegraph quoted Ndlovu, as saying.

"Gordon Brown (UK PM) must be taken to the United Nations Security Council for being a threat to world peace and planting cholera and anthrax to invade Zimbabwe - our peaceful Zimbabwe," he said.

His comments came after Harare tried to claim that Mugabe had been joking when he said there was ''no cholera'' in Zimbabwe, despite the continuing epidemic.

But soon after, 84-year-old Mugabe''s spokesman George Charamba tried to backtrack, saying that he had been making "his argument through sarcasm, noting that now that efforts deployed so far towards containing the outbreak were beginning to yield positive results".

The double-pronged attempt by Harare to try to divert attention from its own failings is an indication that the authorities are increasingly worried about the repercussions of the cholera epidemic.

According to the World Health Organisation it 792 people have died, and it has also coincided with soldiers rioting over their financial problems. (ANI)