Hunger strike woman at US embassy is 'dangerously ill'

A woman on hunger strike outside the American Embassy in Grosvenor Square is "dangerously ill" today after she stopped drinking water.

Fatemeh Khezrie is one of 10 people refusing to eat in a plea for international action to help her sister and thousands of other Iranian dissidents housed in a camp in Iraq.

The businesswoman from Kensington was already weakened by 18 days without food and is deteriorating rapidly after yesterday deciding to stop taking on any liquid.

About 3,500 people live at Camp Ashraf, which was set up near Baghdad in the Eighties to house opponents of the Iranian regime.

Iraqi security forces entered the camp to take control on 28 July, leaving at least eight dead and hundreds injured according to Amnesty International.

Mrs Khezrie, 44, who came to Britain in the early Eighties, said she had not heard from her sister Farzaneh, who lives at Ashraf, for weeks.

Slurring her words, she said: "I'm dizzy but I don't want anything until I have some news from Ashraf."

A fellow protester, Soudabeh Heidari, 19, was treated in hospital this week but has rejoined the hunger strikers.