Guantanamo hunger strikers being fed by tube
U.S. military force-feeding 13 of 89 detainees refusing to eat
The Associated Press
Updated: 9:49 p.m. ET Sept. 9, 2005
SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - The U.S. military is tube-feeding more than a dozen of the 89 terror suspects on hunger strike at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, a spokesman said Friday.
Some of the 89 striking detainees at Guantanamo have not eaten for a month, said Guantanamo detention mission spokesman Sgt. Justin Behrens. The others have refused at least nine consecutive meals, he said.
Fifteen have been hospitalized and 13 of those were being fed through tubes, Behrens said in a written response to questions from The Associated Press. Medics are monitoring all 89 and checking their vital signs daily, he added.
Previously, the military has said that 76 inmates were participating in the hunger strike.
British lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith, who represents one of the hunger strikers — Briton Omar Deghayes, 36 — warned Friday that some of the inmates were willing to starve themselves to death.
“People are desperate. They have been there three years. They were promised that the Geneva Conventions would be respected and various changes would happen and, unfortunately, the (U.S.) government reneged on that,” Stafford-Smith said.
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