IRANIAN expatriates from Enfield have staged a fortnight of protests outside the Iraqi embassy to highlight what they say are is the mistreatment of relatives in Iraq.

Tahereh Safardi, 56, of Ermine Side, Enfield, who knows about fifty people, including her sister in law, at camp Ashraf in the Iraqi province of Dayali, said the handover of the camp by American forces to the Iraqi army in January was like "giving chicken to a fox".

She alleges that the camp is being deliberately deprived of fuel, medical supplies and other essential resources by Iraqi soldiers since they took over the camp on January 1 this year, which means there is now no electricity at the camp and hospital supplies are running out.

The 14-square-mile camp was created over 20 years ago by Iranian dissidents objecting to the regime of Ayatollah Khamenei, and is used as a base for protests against the current Iranian regime.

It's members have the status of “protected persons” under a Geneva convention.

However, the Iraqi government has warned the camp's 3,500 residents that staying in Iraq is "not an option".

Iraqi soldiers are alleged to have erected an Iraqi flag at the entrance and evicted a hundred women from a communal dormitary on the edge of a camp since they took over.

Ms Safardi said: "People in Ashraf have devoted everything for democracy in Iran. These people give up a hundred per cent of their lives for it. This is one tiny thing we can do, and if we don't do this they will close it. We knew it would happen - I wrote letters to the American Embassy and protested outside the UN headquarters in Geneva about it."

For the past two weeks she has joined with between 60 and a hundred Iranian expats to protest outside the Iraqi embassy in London. They say they will remain there until the UK acts to put pressure on the Americans to take the camp back under their control.

A Barnet resident, Mahmoud Tabrizi, 52, accused Iraq‘s National Security Advisor, Mr Mowaffaq al-Rubaie, of “breaching International law and the Geneva Conventions at the behest of the Iranian regime.” He said: “Our demands are not directed against the Iraqi army or Iraqi soldiers supposedly protecting the Camp Ashraf, but against Mr Mowaffaq al-Rubaie.” Mr Al-Rubaie has said he regards the People’s Mujahedin Organisation of Iran, which has many members in the camp, as a terrorist group and its members should leave the country. Mr Tabrizi visited the camp a last month to visit his cousin, but claims he was told he was not allowed to see him because he was not a member of his immediate family.

He said: "They were very insistent that we should take our family with us when we left. They even asked us 'Why are you here? We are going to close it down in a couple of months.'

They have stopped stopped fuel from getting in, we saw the trucks at the front gate, so the water pumps and generator can't run properly.

The hospitals on the site are running out of supplies. We could be talking about another Rwanda if the situation goes on."