BBC correspondent Andrew Harding: Sally Becker lasted five days without food or water

On Monday night, doctors forcibly ended the 37-year-old's protest against the conflict in the Balkan state by putting her on a fluid drip after she lost consciousness in her cell.

"It was not a matter of her giving consent or deliberately ending her protest, it was a medical emergency", said Mike Mendoza, a Briitsh-based associate.

Last week Ms Becker was sentenced to 30 days in jail for crossing into the country without a visa and for links with the outlawed Kosovo Liberation Army.

Protest action

Ms Becker said her hunger strike, which began on Thursday, is on behalf of the family she was helping and the other civilians caught up in the Kosovan conflict.

She was being held in the town of Lipjan near the Kosovan capital, Pristina.

Becker is receiving treatment

Ms Becker made her reputation in 1993 when she rescued 25 wounded children from the Muslim sector of the southern Bosnian town of Mostar while it was under Croat attack.

Appeal process

A co-founder of British aid agency Operation Angel, she left Britain in June leading a team of 26 women volunteers on a mission to deliver clothing and medicine to Kosovo.

Friends and relatives were hopeful an appeal due to take place on Tuesday would release Miss Becker early on humanitarian grounds.

Earlier Ms Becker had refused any Serbian medical treatment including a drip leading to fears that she could become seriously ill through dehydration.