“Jobs, jobs”, “unemployment benefits”, chanted the protesters, who were kept at a distance from the building by a cordon of US troops.
“We’re prepared to stay here as long as it takes to get what we want,” said Jamal Mahmud, a member of the Syndicate of Unemployed, who called the protest.
“We demanded to meet the Americans, but got no response,” he said, adding that he and a handful of other unemployed staged an overnight sit-in without being impeded by US forces despite a night-to-dawn curfew in force in the Iraqi capital.
The protesters said they insisted on being given either jobs or unemployment benefits of 100 dollars a month.
The protest movement began on Tuesday when hundreds of unemployed marched in central Baghdad before staging a sit-in outside coalition headquarters in the former palace of deposed president Saddam Hussein.
Nineteen said they were interrogated by US soldiers on Tuesday night for violating the curfew. —AFP