A hunger strike at the US military's prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, has unsettled senior commanders and produced the most serious challenge yet to the military's effort to manage hundreds of terrorism suspects, The New York Times reported Sunday.
Quoting unnamed lawyers and officials, the newspaper said as many as 200 prisoners - more than a third of the camp's population - have refused food in recent weeks to protest conditions and prolonged confinement without trial.
While military officials put the number of those participating at 105, they acknowledge that 20 of them, whose health and survival are being threatened, are being kept at the camp's hospital and fed through nasal tubes and sometimes given fluids intravenously, the report said.
The military authorities were so concerned about ending a previous strike this summer that they allowed the establishment of a six-member prisoners' grievance committee, said the Times.
But the committee was quickly disbanded. The reports quotes Major Jeffrey Weir, a spokesman at the base, as saying the prisoners who are being fed at the hospital are generally not strapped to their beds or gurneys but are in handcuffs and leg restraints.
A 21st prisoner at the hospital is voluntarily accepting liquid food, the report said.
Major Weir said the prisoners usually accept the nasal tubes passively because they know they will be restrained and fed forcibly if necessary, the paper reported.