Algerian detainee and Aston University student, Redouane Messaoudi, 32, told BBC News he would starve for as long as it took.

He said he came to the UK nearly 10 years ago and is married to a British woman, and lives with her and two young children in Birmingham.

"I am at university, I've paid so much money, I have been working so hard to manage my life between the family and studies," he said.

Dashty Jamal, general secretary of the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees, said the detainees were "victims of war and violence" in Iraq.

"They are not a criminal, they are civilians," he said.

"They arrived in this country because they didn't have any other choice."

Campsfield House, which holds some 200 asylum seekers and foreign prisoners, has been the subject of a campaign to close it.

Fazzel Abdul, one of the detainees who has been in the UK for seven years, said on Tuesday he would be killed if he was sent back to Iraq.

"We want people to listen to us," he said. "We are refusing all food and water and we will keep going.

"It is better to be dead than to return to Iraq."

The Campaign to Close Campsfield group, said other detainees joined the strike in protest over conditions at the centre, where they told her they were being "treated like animals".

The GEO Group, which runs the site for the government, declined to comment.

But a spokesperson for the UK Border Agency, part of the Home Office, insisted it had its "priorities straight".

"In 2007 we deported the highest ever number of foreign lawbreakers, up by a huge 80% and we are committed to removing those who have no legal basis to stay in the UK," he said

Since it opened in 1993, the centre has seen a number of disturbances including escapes and a rooftop protest.

In June, seven detainees escaped in an overnight break-out. Four were later recaptured but three remain missing.

WHAT A SHAME - THEY MIGHT ALL DIE OF STARVATION!