Three Americans began a three-day hunger strike in front of the UN headquarters in Baghdad yesterday, calling for an end to UN sanctions against Iraq.
The two men and one woman, belonging to the Chicago-based Voices in the Wilderness group, held up a poster with pictures of malnourished Iraqi children.
They unfurled banners in English and Arabic outside the headquarters of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) charged with disposing of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"We are vigilant here for the coming three days . . . demonstrating our protest of the embargo," said one of the protesters, Mr John Heid.
"We are fasting in solidarity with brothers and sisters of Iraq who are forced to live in famine conditions by UN-US economic sanctions," the group said.
The group said the UN sanctions imposed for Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait were immoral. It cited a United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) report which put the number of Iraqi children suffering from malnourishment at 960,000.
It said the protest was timed to coincide with the seventh anniversary of the Gulf War at the weekend. "We are here to commemorate and mourn the seventh anniversary of that act and ongoing massacre of Iraqis by the embargo," said Ms Ellen Barfield, a member of the group.
The protest came as Iraq and UN arms inspectors in charge of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were locked in a fresh standoff on Monday after Baghdad barred a UN team headed by an American, Mr Scott Ritter, it accused of spying.
Under the terms of the ceasefire ending the 1991 Gulf War, the sanctions can only be lifted when UNSCOM is satisfied Iraq is no longer capable of manufacturing weapons of mass destruction.
"Together we demand an end to this blockade and further threats recently made by the United States," the Voices in the Wilderness said.
Last week, the group donated some $20,000 (£14,600) to hospitals in Baghdad and the northern cities of Mosul and Arbil.
The group said it made the trip despite warnings from the US Treasury Department that the penalty for violating its rules concerning travelling and delivering aid to Iraq was a $1 million fine or 12 years in prison.