A group of US activists are to experience life under UN sanctions at first hand, living with Iraqi families for two months, the team leader said Saturday.
Six volunteers of the Voices in the Wilderness which campaigns for a lifting of the decade-old embargo are to be lodged with families in the southern city of Basra, one of the hardest hit by sanctions, Kathy Kelly told AFP.
The activists, including three women, will first meet Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz on Saturday, said 47-year-old Kelly, whose group has already made around 20 trips to Iraq.
"We chose the Jumhuriya district of Basra because it is one of the places in which people died as a result of the daily raids carried out by US and British planes," she said.
"Our previous stays were short and restricted to visits to hospitals and Iraqi cities. This time we want to stay longer to learn more about the way Iraqis live and their suffering."
The group is to live in homes without air conditioning despite the blistering heat and humidity of the Gulf region, and without telephones. They will survive on the same diet as their host families.
Kelly, whose group is based in Chicago, Illinois and is funded by donations, said she and her colleagues would try to learn Arabic to communicate with ordinary Iraqis.
The country has been under crippling sanctions ever since its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait - BAGHDAD (AFP)
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