Guantanamo force-feeding not to interfere with Ramadan

Prisoners held at the Guantanamo naval base will not be force-fed after dawn and before sunset during the holy month of Ramadan, a detention facility spokesman said in a Reuters report.

Detainees designated for force-feeding are taken twice a day by guards to a camp clinic or private room. There they are restrained in chairs; shackled at the wrists and ankles as a Navy medic or nurse passes a tube through their noses and down into their stomachs. For one to two hours prisoners are fed a drip of Ensure, a liquid nutritional supplement.

Of the 166 foreign captives held at the Guantanamo detention camp, 106 are on hunger strikes. Forty-five of whom are at least partially being fed through nasogastric tubes.