Donna Schmader, left, of Warwick, and Pat Fontes, of Hopkinton, let their feelings be known at a rally in Burnside Park before a march to the State House.

Journal / Ruben W. Perez

PROVIDENCE — A group of 50 protestors marked the start of the sixth year of the Iraq war yesterday with a march through the rainy streets of downtown Providence that ended with a rally on the State House lawn.

The antiwar activists snaked past the Westminster Street headquarters of Textron Inc., a weapons manufacturer, and continued past two military recruiting offices on Weybosset Street.

“The cost of just one day of the occupation of Iraq is obscene by any measure,” said Martha Yager, director of the American Friends Service Committee. “When we consider that basic human needs are going unmet right here at home, we should all be saying ‘no more’ to five years of war and occupation.”

The protesters gathered at Burnside Park, across the street from Kennedy Plaza and U.S. District Court. They wore rain gear and carried posters urging the public to end the bloodshed. The event was accompanied with music by several participants playing a variety of band instruments.

A half-dozen uniformed Providence police officers kept an eye on the peaceful gathering.

Yager passed out colorful posters for the march, called “Dreams and Nighmares of joyous Iraqis and others who have suffered from living in a war-torn country.

Most Americans know that nearly 4,000 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, she said, but the public does not realize that a million Iraqis have died. “We also need to worry about our brothers and sisters in Iraq,” she said.

Paul Hubbard, of the Rhode Island Mobilization Committee to End the War and Occupation, said he just returned from Washington, D.C., where 300 veterans of the war in Iraq came out in force against the war.

“We’re here not only to make a moral statement,” he said. “We don’t want the war to continue for one more day.”

Among the other groups that participated in or supported the protest were Rhode Island Community Coalition for Peace, Workers International League, Rhode Island Unitarian Universalists for Social Justice, the Providence branch of the International Socialist Organization; MoveOn, Operation Iraqi Freedom, Green Party of Rhode Island, Providence Students for a Democratic Society, South Kingstown Justice and Peace Advocacy and East Bay Citizens for Peace.

bmalinow@projo.com