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Some Gitmo detainees may be force-fed

Some detainees at Guantanamo Bay are fasting to make a political statement and to try to speed up the process that will determine their fate.

GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba (CNN) -- Three of the Afghan war detainees at the U.S. naval base in Cuba are on a "long-term fast" and will be force-fed nutrition if they continue not to eat, officials said Thursday.

One of the three men ate food Wednesday, leaving the other two in dire medical need, said Capt. Al Shimkus, the commanding officer of the base's naval hospital.

"Two detainees require medical intervention to prevent severe illness and eventually death," he said.

The three are among a group of 31 suspected Taliban and al Qaeda fighters who have refused meals for the past seven days.

U.S. military officials, who are reluctant to call it a "hunger strike," said the detainees are fasting to make a political statement and to try to speed up the process that will determine their fate.

A Muslim chaplain at the base was meeting with those who are fasting to explain the process of involuntary feeding, Shimkus said. "The chaplain will be there to interpret as well as allow them to better understand what they are doing to themselves in the starvation element."

Should involuntary feeding become necessary, he said, a tube would be placed through the nose and into the stomach. A "suitable nutritional supplement" would then be administered.

"Prior to this course of treatment," Shimkus said, "the detainees will be given the opportunity to consume food orally and be advised that if he chooses not to eat, he'll be fed involuntarily."

The two detainees requiring the urgent medical attention have been moved from the general population to the Fleet 20 hospital, the field hospital where those with battle wounds are being treated, but are isolated from the patients there.

The remaining 29 detainees who are refusing meals are from the same cell block at the Camp X-Ray detainment center, an open-air, chain-link facility in operation since January. The facility currently houses 300 detainees.

Journalists are unable to confirm the eating habits independently.

In late February, the detainees launched a rolling hunger strike that peaked with some 194 skipping at least one meal a day. That action simmered down in mid-March, by which point two of the detainees had been forcefully given intravenous fluids.

In a related matter, Shimkus said U.S. military officials have decided to buy prosthetic limbs for the nine amputees being held at the base. A corpsman is currently receiving training in how to make the fiberglass limbs, he said.

"It will probably not look like a foot, but be a functional piece of equipment that will allow them to walk without a crutch," Shimkus said.