Scores of Iraqi demonstrators gathered again in the south-eastern city of Amara on Sunday, a day after at least six people were killed when local police and British troops fired on violent protesters.
There were no reports of violence on Sunday. Witnesses said many of them relatives of those killed on Saturday had staged another protest demanding compensation.
Iraqi police and British troops were watching from a distance but made no move to intervene, the witnesses said.
A local doctor said at least six people had been killed and seven injured in Saturday's clashes in Amara, 365km south-east of Baghdad.
The violence began when Iraqi police believed they were being shot at during a protest over unemployment in front of the provincial government office in Amara, Britain's Defence Ministry said in a statement in London.
The police opened fire and British troops with armoured vehicles were deployed to support them, the ministry said.
The British troops also opened fire when grenades were hurled at them, it said.
All the dead were Iraqi civilians.
"One, maybe two, (of the dead) were possibly killed by British troops," British army spokesman Major Tim Smith told Reuters Television on Sunday.
"Those troops were firing in self-defence. It was quite clear that a number of objects were thrown at the British troops, possibly grenades. I can assure everybody that they only fired in self-defence."
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