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GUANTÁNAMO BAY, Cuba – A senior official with the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a rare alarm Friday about the deteriorating health conditions and inadequate preparations for elderly detainees at Guantánamo Bay.
The U.S. military must do a better job of providing care to prisoners who “experience symptoms of accelerated aging, worsened by the cumulative effects of experience and years spent in captivity,” said Patrick Hamilton, head of the Red Cross delegation for the United States and Canada, said in a statement.
In March, Mr. Hamilton and another delegation made a quarterly visit to the detention facility, the organization’s 146th since the wartime prison opened in January 2002. He said the detainees’ “physical and mental health needs are growing and challenging.”
“Consideration must be given to adapt the infrastructure to the evolving needs and disabilities of the prisoners, as well as the rules governing their daily life,” said Mr. Hamilton, who last visited the prison in 2003, when 660 men and boys. held there. Currently, there are still 30 prisoners.
Red Cross officials generally do not comment publicly on conditions at detention facilities, preferring to keep communications with the US government confidential.
Typically, the monthly visit includes a meeting with the detention facility commander, who is now a brigadier general with the Michigan National Guard. Members of the delegation, mostly doctors, also met with detainees, interviewed those who were to be released and delivered messages from families.
Mr Hamilton said military officials at Guantánamo were “offering some temporary solutions” to the physical and mental health needs of detainees.
He urged the Biden administration and Congress to, as a priority, “find adequate and sustainable solutions to address these issues.”
Lawyers for some of the prisoners, especially those who spent years in secret CIA detention before Guantánamo, said that the detainees have brain damage and disorders from beatings and sleep deprivation, gastrointestinal system damage from anal abuse and problems that may be related with long shackles and so on. cage.
One of the sickest prisoners is Abd al-Hadi al-Iraqi, who is in his 60s and is the oldest prisoner in the prison. He has undergone six surgeries on his spine and has been back at Guantanamo Bay since 2017 by a Navy medical team brought to the base.
The lawyer, Susan Hensler, said that Mr. Hadi was recently diagnosed with “severe osteoporosis” which likely contributed to the problems in his latest surgery, in November. Doctors put metal behind it, but the device slipped and the screw came loose, he said. Navy doctors plan to bring a team to the base this year for another operation, using larger screws.
The Red Cross statement comes less than a month after the United Nations investigative group published a public complaint submitted to the United States on January 11 about health care provisions in prisons, and specifically for Mr. Hadi.
Mr Hamilton said the United States needed to adopt a “more comprehensive approach” to detainee health care. “All detainees must have access to adequate health care that causes their mental and physical deterioration – whether at Naval Station Guantánamo Bay or elsewhere. This includes medical emergencies.
“At the same time, consideration must be given to adapting the infrastructure to the evolving needs and disabilities of prisoners, as well as the rules governing their daily lives,” he said.
The government employee, who was not authorized to be identified by name, complained about air conditioning problems in the prison for prisoners during the month of Ramadan, which has ended.
The military had no immediate comment on the Red Cross issue or the AC issue.
Red Cross officials also asked the Pentagon to give detainees longer, more frequent calls with family members, “remembering that there are no personal visits.”
Lawyers say prisoners generally have the right to speak with family members four times a year.
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