Medical reinforcements arrive at Guantanamo Bay as hunger strikers increase

The US has reinforced medical staff at Guantanamo Bay to try to handle a spreading hunger strike by prisoners at the detention facility, BBC reported.

About 40 nurses and other specialists arrived at the weekend, camp spokesman Lt Col Samuel House said.

He said that 100 of 166 detainees were now on hunger strike, with 21 of them being force-fed through a tube. The inmates are protesting against their indefinite detention. Most are being held without charge. 

The hunger strike started at the US facility in Cuba in February and has grown rapidly in recent weeks. Although such actions are frequent at Guantanamo, the current protest is one of the longest and most widespread. Guantanamo officials deny claims that the strike began after copies of the Koran were mishandled during searches of prisoners' cells.

Violence erupted at the prison on 13 April as the authorities moved inmates out of communal cellblocks where they had covered surveillance cameras and windows.

Some prisoners used "improvised weapons" and were met with "less-than-lethal rounds", camp officials said, but no serious injuries were reported.