(ANSA) - ROME, FEB 18 - A Rome hunger strike by members of the Extinction Rebellion group demanding action to address the climate emergency entered its 11th day on Friday.
    Three activists are putting their health on the line and staging a daily protests outside the Ministry of Ecological Transition (MITE) in the Italian capital as part of the Ultima Generazione (Last Generation) campaign.
    They are demanding a public meeting at which Ecological Transition Minister Roberto Cingolani and other members of Premier Mario Draghi's government would present the "urgent, necessary measures they are implementing (or not implementing) to tackle the eco-climate crisis".
    They also calling for the establishment of citizens assemblies to agree on the moves needed for the ecological transition.
    The activists had a private meeting with Cingolani on Wednesday, but were not satisfied with the outcome and decided to continue with the hunger strike.
    They accused the minister of passing the buck by saying it was up to Draghi to decide whether to grant the demand for a public meeting on the climate crisis.
    "The minister described me as a girl with a gigantism complex because I dared to outline the priorities of his ministry," said Laura, one of the hunger strikers.
    "I found him to be a very angry person, perhaps he's angry with himself too and is in crisis, a sign that the strike we are staging is extremely troublesome," added the young woman, who has several health problems and said she already felt debilitated on the fourth day of the strike.
    Cingolani only agreed to Wednesday's meeting after receiving an apology for raids at the start of the month in which some Extinction Rebellion members burst into the ministry and committed acts of vandalism, spraying paint inside and outside the building During the meeting the minister stressed that "a fair transition on the environmental and social front" was a priority for the government, "as shown by the commitments made at the international level", the ministry said in a statement.
    It said the minister reiterated that he was "working on the front line in the fight against climate change" and was willing to meet the activists again in the future.
    But it also said that dialogue must be "civil and non-violent" and not along the lines of the incidents at the start of the month, saying that, among other things, the raids had scared people working in the ministry.
    The ministry statement also stated that "parliament is the place where the representatives of the citizens sit" and where "a democratic debate takes place and the majority decides".
    Extinction Rebellion is a group with branches in many countries that stages peaceful, but frequently disruptive protests, to highlight the gravity of the climate crisis and trigger action.
    (ANSA).