Hopelessness: Guantanamo grows tense, inmates suicidal
At least two Guantanamo Bay detainees have attempted suicide since the confrontation between guards and prisoners in February that brought about the ongoing hunger strike, AP reports.
A team of journalists, including from AP, have been allowed into the facilities. They testify the atmosphere has grown tense and heavy in the prison where 166 men are indefinitely held with little to no hope of release. Still they were not allowed to gather more information on the two suicide attempts. At least seven people have managed to kill themselves since Guantanamo was first set up in 2002. The fact that Gitmo has turned into a pit of hopelessness is confirmed both by the detainee's lawyers and some US officials. While the number of officially-acknowledged hunger strikers is growing, most prisoners are isolated from each other and the world. "How can the military, even the military, hope to maintain discipline over a prison camp where there is absolutely no hope for those men confined here?" Lieutenant Commander Kevin Bogucki, a US Navy Military Lawyer who was visiting his clients at the base this week, told AP. Out of 86 Guantanamo prisoners cleared for the release, the overwhelming majority - 56 of them - are Yemeni nationals, RT's Gayane Chichakyan points out. However, three years ago the US suspended all transfers of detainees to Yemen. It may well mean dying in Guantanamo, Omar Farah, petitioner for the Center of Constitutional Rights, believes.