Relatives in protest over Abu Ghraib overcrowding

Relatives of the thousands of Iraqis in American-run detention centres in Iraq are protesting at overcrowding. Pre-election sweeps have swollen the prison population to breaking point, they say. At Abu Ghraib prison, where eight Americans were charged last year with abusing detainees, more than 3,100 are interned. US officials admit that their "ideal limit" for the facility is 2,500.

Hundreds of relatives queue for hours outside in the hope of getting news of loved ones, who have been picked up in operations outside the capital.Iqbal Ali Khadim has been waiting to see her 12-year-old son, Ali. "I just want him to be out," she said. "The last time I visited him, he told me they had beat him because they think he was going to be a suicide bomber."

Ali, along with his father, two older brothers and a pair of uncles, were arrested from Mrs Khadim's home in Yusefiya, south of Baghdad, two months ago. Tomorrow, she says, she will make the day-long trip to Camp Bucca in Umm Qasr, south of Basra, where Ali's brothers and uncles are being held, accused of supporting the insurgency. Many of the families outside Abu Ghraib, which along with the 5,640 prisoners at Bucca accounts for almost all of the detainees the US holds in Iraq, complain of arrests that take all the men from a family and that the prisoners are being split up.

Often, arrests remove the breadwinners from a family, leaving women in dire straits. "I have no sons to work and I cannot collect my husband's pension because they took his ID when he was arrested," Mrs Khadim said. One man standing in line said: "If they are not going to charge them, they should let them go." He complained that his brother had been held for more than a year.

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