March 20, 2013: The U.S. military has acknowledged that 21 inmates at Guantánamo are protesting their detention by refusing food. One prisoner said the hunger strike was a result of detainees feeling like they are “living in their graves.” 111 of the 166 inmates at Guantánamo have been unanimously cleared for release or relocation to prisons in their homelands. Congressional restrictions, however, are blocking all detainee transfers out of Guantánamo.

Haitian refugees protest at Guantánamo. Courtesy Merrill Smith.

March 20, 1993: Haitian refugees being detained at Guantánamo were in the midst of a four-week long hunger strike protesting their detention. U.S. officials intercepted Haitian refugees fleeing political violence in their home country on the high seas and brought them to Guantánamo, where many of them spent years living in squalid conditions while immigration officials decided their fate.