A top International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) delegate Friday said that inmates held by the US at Guantanamo Bay Detention Center are experiencing “symptoms of accelerated [aging].” Patrick Hamilton, the head of the ICRC’s US and Canada delegation, visited Guantanamo Bay, Cuba in March and says that the inmates’ symptoms are consistent with those he observed at Guantanamo in 2003.
The US started holding terrorism suspects, designated enemy combatants, in 2002. Since the detention camp’s establishment, it has attracted widespread criticism for its conditions, lack of due process rights for detainees and the use of torture.
Hamilton said that the accelerated aging symptoms he witnessed were “worsened by the cumulative effects of [detainees’] experiences and years spent in detention.” He called for authorities to adopt a healthcare approach that would “[account] for both deteriorating mental and physical conditions,” which would include changes in infrastructure, detention rules, and contact with families.
Guantanamo Bay has been called a constitutional “enigma” as detainees were classed as “enemy combatants” and held outside of the US, raising questions as to which constitutional rights they do and do not have. Some groups, like the Center for Constitutional Rights, claim that Eighth Amendment protections apply to detainees, which would guarantee them access to adequate healthcare during their detentions. Multiple Supreme Court cases have also ensured the right of US and non-US detainees to challenge their detention and designation as enemy combatants or terrorism suspects that the president “has authority to detain.”
US President Joe Biden’s administration has transferred five detainees out of Guantanamo so far in 2023. This is largely a result of former President Barack Obama’s Executive Order 13567, which established the Periodic Review Board to periodically examine whether detainees remain a threat to the United States.
Amid repeated calls for Guantanamo’s closure, 30 detainees remain, with 16 eligible for transfer.
