Tribal leaders of Iraq's Marsh Arabs have visited London to highlight their people's plight since they were driven from their villages by Saddam Hussein.
About 250,000 Marsh Arabs live in refugee camps and Iraqi cities.
They are unable to return to their homes since the marshes on which they depend were drained by the Hussein regime as a means of repression.
Their leaders asked Britain for help in re-flooding all the marshes, as the region is administered by the British.
Impromptu destruction of Saddam's dams by the tribes during the war has allowed the re-flooding of 50% of the old marshes and the return of about 30,000 people.
However, about £275m is needed to restore water buffalo pasture and fishing grounds which have supported the tribes for thousands of years.
Sheikh Haddam Mohan Safah al-Bashama and Sheikh Naeem Shalghlam al-Baghannam, who are believed to be the first representatives of the Marsh Arabs ever to visit Britain, had unsuccessfully sought a meeting with Foreign Secretary Jack Straw on Thursday.
The Foreign Office said this was because the request had been made at very short notice.
Sheikh Naeem said Saddam's overthrow was joyfully welcomed by the people of the marshes, who had been driven from their homes by his army during the 1980s war with Iran, suffered appalling repression and seen their environment destroyed in the 1990s.
"We considered Saddam's collapse as the time the sun arose again for our people," he said.
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