  We provide an account of the possible acceleration of iron nuclei up to
energies $\sim300$ EeV in the nearby, metally-rich starburst galaxy NGC 253. It
is suggested that particles can escape from the nuclear region with energies of
$\sim10^{15}$ eV and then could be reaccelerated at the terminal shock of the
galactic superwind generated by the starburst, avoiding in this way the
photodisintegration expected if the nuclei were accelerated in the central
region of high photon density. We have also made estimates of the expected
arrival spectrum, which displays a strong dependency with the energy cutoff at
the source.
