U.S. transfers 6 detainees from Guantanamo Bay to Uruguay Sunday Dec 07,2014

 

A half-dozen men considered prisoners in the U.S. war on terror until yesterday now have a new designation -- refugees -- and a new temporary home: Uruguay.

A U.S. medical aircraft carrying the 6 former Guantanamo Bay detainees landed at a military base in the Uruguayan capital, Montevideo, in the middle of the night, CNN affiliate Canal 10 Uruguay reported on Sunday Dec 07,2014

Within a few hours, a caravan of 15 to 20 vehicles, including ambulances, drove the newly freed men to hospitals.

The U.S. Defense Department confirmed the transfer Sunday and said it coordinated with the government of Uruguay to make sure the transfers took place with adequate security and with humane treatment.

"The United States is grateful to the government of Uruguay for its willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility," the department said.

Uruguayan President Jose Mujica agreed to accept the six men -- four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian -- as a humanitarian gesture and said they would be given help getting established in a country with a small Muslim population.

All six were detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda in 2002 but were never charged. They have been cleared for release since at least 2010 but they could not be sent home and have languished as the U.S. struggled to find countries willing to accept them.

4 of the 6 Guantanamo prisoners enjoy freedom in Uruguay

 

Four of the six men released this week more than a decade incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay took their first walk in freedom on Friday Dec 12,2014, stopping to buy a bit of cheese and bread on a stroll through Uruguay's capital.

The men - four Syrians, a Tunisian and a Palestinian - are staying at a house in a middle class neighborhood as guests of a major labor union, which has been asked to help by President Jose Mujica.

The union's executive secretary, Gabriel Melgareo, said Friday that four of them managed to elude journalists and went on a 6-mile walk along the banks of the Rio de la Plata on Thursday Dec 11,2014

Note

The six, who had spent more than a dozen years at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba, arrived Monday in Uruguay, which agreed to take them as refugees.

They had been detained as suspected militants with ties to al-Qaeda in 2002 but were never charged. They had been cleared for release since 2009 but could not be sent home and the U.S. struggled to find countries willing to take them.