Guantanamo Bay prisoners clash with guards

Guantanamo Bay prisoners clash with guards

PanARMENIAN.Net - Months of increased tension at the Guantanamo Bay prison have boiled over into a clash between guards and detainees as the military closed a communal section of the jail and moved inmates into single cells, Belfast Telegraph said.

The violence erupted yesterday, April 13 during an early morning raid that military officials said was necessary because prisoners had covered up security cameras and windows during a weeks-long protest and hunger strike over their indefinite confinement and conditions at the US base in Cuba.

Prisoners fought guards with makeshift weapons that included broomsticks when troops arrived to move them out of a communal wing of the section of the prison known as Camp 6, said navy captain Robert Durand, a military spokesman. Guards responded by firing four "less-than-lethal rounds", he said.

There were no serious injuries from the rounds, which included a modified shotgun shell that fires small rubber pellets as well as a type of bean-bag projectile, said army colonel Greg Julian, a spokesman for Miami-based US Southern Command, which oversees Guantanamo. "I know for sure that one detainee was hit but the injuries were minor, just some bruises," he said.

The confrontation came a day after a team from the International Committee of the Red Cross finished a three-week visit to Guantanamo to meet prisoners and assess conditions.

Camp 6 had previously been a section reserved for detainees who followed prison rules. In exchange they were allowed to share meals and pray together, have nearly round-the-clock recreation time as well as access to satellite TV, computer games and classes. It held a majority of the 166 prisoners at the base before the hunger strike began, but the military said the number was down to fewer than 70 yesterday.

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