MONTEVIDEO, Uruguay (AP) – Uruguay’s government said Wednesday that it is searching for another country to take a former Guantanamo detainee who is threatening to die on a hunger strike if he is not allowed to reunite with his family abroad.
Syrian native Abu Wa’el Dhiab has repeatedly said he is unhappy in Uruguay and is demanding he be allowed to leave the South American country, which took him in with five other former Guantanamo prisoners in 2014.
“For several days now, the Uruguayan government has been making arrangements with different states, especially in the Arab world, so they can take in Dhiab and he can fulfill his wish and reunite with his family,” Dhiab’s government liaison, Christian Mirza, told local radio Sarandi.
“The government is trying its best, but it’s not that simple.”
Although there’s nothing impeding Dhiab’s family from coming to Uruguay, the former prisoner is against it, Mirza said. “We’d have to ask ourselves why his family could not come to Uruguay when the families of other Guantanamo refugees came here when they wished.”