TWO North-East men will embark today on a hunger strike in Romania after being refused access to a children's orphanage.

Humanitarian Rod Jones, 52, and 28-year-old Stephen Groves want to focus world attention on the plight of Romania's orphans and the treatment meted out to the Teesside charity, Convoy Aid.

Mr Jones, the charity's founder, has been accused of nine years ago, stealing children from an orphanage at Iash - despite the fact that one youngster has been officially adopted by a Teesside couple with the approval of his natural parents and the Romanian authorities.

Mr Jones, of Middlesbrough, has also been interviewed by the Romanian Office of Protection of the Child about removing a healthy baby - now a nine year old girl - from an "HIV-riddled ward" and putting her into the care of a Romanian couple with the charity paying for her upkeep.

He has counter-accused Romanian medical staff of injecting healthy babies with the HIV virus by using the same syringe to inoculate diseased and healthy babies alike.

He has been told by the Romanian authorities to keep himself available to face a tribunal.

The Foreign Office alerted the British consulate in Bucharest about the situation, but said the Government could not interfere in Romania's judicial procedures.

Mr Groves, of Howden-le-Wear, near Bishop Auckland, said: "I am all right physically. Just having water and cigarettes will do me.''

The duo plan to begin their protest outside the headquarters of the police prefect at the town of Iash, where Rod Jones has been delivering essential supplies for ten years.

Stephen accompanied Mr Jones and his Romanian wife, Gabby, on his latest mercy mission to Iash, intent on bringing a little colour into the orphans' lives by painting children's cartoon characters on the walls of the wards of the orphanage.