Mothers were chief among the mourned

The coffins of 45 children were taken through central Baghdad to the offices of the United Nations. There, about 200 mourners burned the Israeli flag and chanted anti-American slogans.

Organisers said the children, some a few days old, had died because of the shortage of medicines in Baghdad's hospitals and clinics caused by the sanctions.

Some of the dead children had been only a few days old

At the head of the procession marched political dignitaries from outside Iraq, in Baghdad for a pan-Arab conference, as well as religious figures from a variety of creeds.

Both Sheikh Mohammed Said al-Naimi of the Iraqi Ministry of Awqaf and Pastor Nashwan of the Syrian Evangelical Protestant Church called for an end to sanctions, which they said were claiming innocent lives.