by WAIEL FALEH

BAGHDAD -- Six American opponents of U.N. sanctions on Iraq set out
Saturday
to live in a southern city for two months and experience the hardships
ordinary Iraqis face every day -- food rations, power shutoffs and
sewage
problems.

Activists from the Chicago-based group, Voices in the Wilderness,
picked
al-Jumhoriya district in Basra, 340 miles south of Baghdad. Allied
forces
pounded Basra during the 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraqi troops out of
Kuwait. U.S. and British jets still carry out airstrikes on the area
during
patrols over southern Iraq.

In Basra, the activists would ''live simply, study Arabic and, as best
as we
can, become voices on behalf of people whom we believe are innocent
victims
of a pitiless siege enforced by military might,'' Kathy Kelly of
Chicago
said Saturday before setting out from Baghdad.

Voices in the Wilderness, which has a branch in London, seeks an end to
U..N.
sanctions imposed on Iraq for its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, which led to
the
Gulf War.

The sanctions have crippled the Iraqi economy, and health and education
systems and have left residents dependent on U.N. food rations. They
also
are blamed for countless deaths of Iraqi citizens, especially the very
young
and elderly.

The group was planning to live on the same amount of food rations
Iraqis
receive and deal with the power cuts, bad water and damaged sewer
system in
the Basra neighborhood. They planned weekly reports detailing their
activities.

''We would like for people of the United States and the world to know
what
really is going on, otherwise they may remain unaffected by sufferings
Iraqi
people endure,'' Kelly said.

Kelly, 47, has visited Iraq 13 times since December 1990, when she was
among
hundreds of foreigners to camp out in the Iraqi desert for 10 days in
an
attempt to dissuade allied forces from attacking.

In 1996, she established Voices in the Wilderness, which has brought
delegations of U.S. citizens to Iraq to see for themselves how the
sanctions
hurt ordinary Iraqi citizens.

While not a humanitarian aid organization, Voices has delivered more
than $1
million worth of medicines for Iraqi hospitals and other humanitarian
donations.