Guantanamo prisoners display signs of 'accelerated ageing': Red Cross

A top official of the International Committee of the Red Cross stated on Friday that prisoners who have been kept for years in the USdetention facility in Cuba at Guantanamo Bay are exhibiting signs of "accelerated ageing."

"We're calling on the USadministration and Congress to work together to find adequate and sustainable solutions to address these issues," said Patrick Hamilton, the ICRC's head of delegation for the United States and Canada, who spoke to Reuters.

"Action should be taken as a matter of priority," he added.

After a 20-year hiatus, Hamilton returned to the location in March and made his remarks.He said he was "struck by how those who are still detained today are experiencing the symptoms of accelerated ageing, worsened by the cumulative effects of their experiences and years spent in detention".

He demanded that prisoners be given access to proper mental and physical health care as well as more regular family visits.

The USDefense Department "is currently reviewing the report," a Pentagon spokesperson told Reuters.

In response to the 2001 hijacked airline attacks on New York and the Pentagon, which killed over 3,000 people, Republican President George W. Bush built the Guantanamo camp in 2002 to detain suspects in foreign terrorism.

Because of the severe methods of interrogation that critics have claimed constituted to torture, it came to represent the excesses of the American "war on terror." When Democrat Joe Biden became president in 2021, there were 39prisoners. While the Biden administration has stated that it wants to close the facility, it has not yet provided a plan for doing so.

In February, two brothers were deported to Pakistan, but 30 prisoners are still detained. Hamilton pleaded with Washington to decide the future of the prisoners, urging action to let those who qualified for release.

After the US Congress acted beginning in 2011 to set restrictions on the transfer of inmates, President Barack Obama promised to close the facility but faced harsh criticism from Republicans and failed to do so, as reported by Al Jazeera.

There are39 men being held at Guantanamo (as of 2021), which is a relatively small number. They consist of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the claimed mastermind of the September 11 attacks by al-Qaeda, as well as four other conspirators who will stand prosecution by military commissions.

By the end of 2008, the Bush administration had moved almost 540 prisoners out of Guantanamo, and by the start of 2017, the Obama administration had sent almost 200 prisoners out of the prison.

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