PEACE activists broke into an RAF base yesterday in protest against the use of British military drones in Iraq.

The four protesters from End the Drone Wars, including a 64-year-old woman, were arrested on the scene on suspicion of aggravated trespass.

Activists said they hoped to create a “new year gateway for peace” and highlight the issues of military use of drones through direct action.

Group spokesman Martin Newell told the Star that the day’s events “went very well.”

Chris Cole from Oxford, Katharina Karcher from Coventry, Gary Eagling from Nottingham and Penny Walker from Leicester cut through the fence of the RAF Waddington site in Lincolnshire in the early hours.

The group then turned their attention to the Reaper Ground Control station from where British pilots have been remotely operating war drones.

End the Drone Wars banners were displayed and Iraqi and Afghani civilian casualties reports read out.

The base was put on total lockdown for an hour before the protesters were arrested.

“We come to RAF Waddington today to say a clear ‘no’ to the growing normalisation and acceptability of drone warfare,” the group said in a statement.

“Thanks to the marketing of drone war as ‘risk free,’ ‘precise’ and above all ‘humanitarian,’ war has been rehabilitated and accepted as virtually normal by those who see little or nothing of the impact on the ground thousands of miles away.

“With just a little effort we can almost believe that war is not happening at all.”

They added that, despite the use of drones, “war is as brutal and deadly as it has always been with civilians killed, communities destroyed, and the next generation traumatised.

“As we continue to commemorate the centenary of the ‘war to end all wars’ lessons are not learnt.”

The Waddington RAF base has been the scene of several protests against the use of the unmanned aerial vehicles.

End the Drone Wars remarked: “Let us instead build real peace and real security by joining with those working around the globe to build peace by peace.

“Let us reject violence, war and drones to enable real peace and real security to flourish.”