By The Huffington Post News Editors

* 31 detainees participating in hunger strike
* After 11 years in captivity, their future is uncertain
* Efforts to close the camp have stalled
By Jane Sutton
MIAMI, March 26 (Reuters) – The International Committee of the Red Cross sent a doctor and another delegate to the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo a week earlier than planned because of concern about a growing hunger strike among detainees, an ICRC spokesman said on Tuesday.
About a dozen ICRC representatives were scheduled to make a regular two-week visit to the detention camp on April 1, ICRC spokesman Simon Schorno said.
“Because of the current tensions and hunger strike we decided to send a couple of delegates to the island starting this week,” Schorno said. “One is a medical doctor whose job is to follow more specifically the hunger strike.”
Thirty-one of the 166 prisoners at the Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base in Cuba have joined the hunger strike, said Navy Captain Robert Durand, a spokesman for the detention operation.
Eleven of them had lost enough weight that they were being fed liquid meals through tubes inserted into their noses and down into their stomachs, and three of those were hospitalized for rehydration and observation, Durand said.
The numbers had risen from 24 hunger strikers, with eight being force-fed a week ago.
Hunger strikes have flared up at the prison camp since it opened in January 2002 to hold men captured in counter-terrorism operations after the Sept. 11 attacks.
The current hunger strike began about seven weeks ago. Military officers, human rights monitors and lawyers representing the prisoners have said it reflects frustration at the failure to resolve their fate.
“Tensions at Guantanamo are certainly related, in our view, to the uncertainty that’s prevailing on the future for the detainees …read more
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