Britain and America added their voices yesterday to increasing demands for the removal of President Mugabe, by force if necessary.

David Miliband, the Foreign Secretary, said that the world was “watching with horror the worsening situation in Zimbabwe”, and assured the country’s neighbours that there would be massive support for the removal of his “rogue” regime.

Citing the rapidly spreading cholera epidemic, the implosion of the economy and the collapse of public services, he said there was now “international clamour” for change.

He added: “World leaders are debating what can be done to alleviate suffering in the face of a Government seemingly so determined to bring misery on its own people.”

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Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said it was “well past time for Robert Mugabe to leave. If this is not evident for the international community, I don’t know what would be.”

Zimbabwe declared an emergency this week and appealed for international help to battle a cholera outbreak that has killed 575 people, with 12,700 reported cases of the disease, according to the UN. Western officials believe the true figure is far higher.

Those living in remote areas, however, face a mostly unreported scourge of starvation. The Times visited one clinic where workers knew of eight deaths, but added that many more had probably gone unrecorded. Those areas considered opposition strongholds – mostly in the west and south – are having food aid withheld.

Desmond Tutu, the former Archbishop of Cape Town and Nobel peace laureate, said that Mr Mugabe was “destroying a wonderful country” and should be removed by force if necessary. “I think the world must say: ‘you have been responsible with your cohorts for gross violations and you are going to face indictment in The Hague unless you step down’,” he said.

Plans are being laid for a UN summit on Zimbabwe this month, as Western diplomats press for a meeting between the Security Council and diplomatic “Elders” Jimmy Carter and Kofi Annan, who were denied entry to Zimbabwe on a humanitarian mission.

The European Union is planning to expand sanctions against Mr Mugabe’s regime next week, diplomats said, but Zimbabwe’s plight is also moving rapidly up the agenda of its African neighbours, as cholera and refugees spill across their borders.

South Africa demanded that Mr Mugabe and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) swiftly form a power-sharing government because Zimbabweans are “dying in the street”. Mozambique put its border areas on high alert for cholera, while Raila Odinga, the Kenyan Prime Minister, said it was “time for decisive action to push [Mugabe] out of power”. Botswana has also pressed for sanctions on Zimbabwe.

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