U.S. tube-feeding detainees on hunger strike

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 Guantánamo Bay prison in Cuba, a spokesman said yesterday.

Some of the 89 striking detainees at Guantánamo have not eaten for a month, said Sgt. Justin Behrens, Guantánamo detention mission spokesman. 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. 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 yesterday 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.

"Sadly, it is very hard to see how a very obstinate military and a very desperate group of prisoners are ever going to come to an agreement."

The prison at Guantánamo opened in January 2002 and now holds around 520 prisoners from 40 countries; more than 230 others have been released or transferred to their home governments' custody.