Relatives and supporters of pro-Palestinian activists weeks into Britain's biggest prison hunger strike in decades warned Thursday some are at "imminent risk" of dying, as they demanded a government meeting.
Some of the eight Palestine Action detainees in custody awaiting trial have gone without food for up to 47 days, protesting their treatment and calling for their release on bail.
The group, aged between 20 and 31, are facing trials relating to break-ins or criminal damage by Palestine Action, which the government has banned under anti-terror laws.
Two protesters began their hunger strikes in early November, according to their supporters, with others joining in the following weeks.
Two of the eight have paused while one has been participating on alternate days due to being diabetic, leaving five at the most peril.
"Today's day 47 - any day after day 35 is considered a critical and severe stage of starvation," Ella Moulsdale, next of kin of one of the hunger strikers, Qesser Zuhrah, told reporters in London.
"This is a very deadly period," the tearful 21-year-old said, adding that Zuhrah had lost 13 percent of her body weight during the nearly seven-week hunger strike which has seen her taken to hospital twice.
James Smith, an emergency physician, has been in contact with some of the protesters and their relatives.
At a news conference, he warned of "the imminent risk to the health and the risk of death for all of the hunger strikers at this stage".
"On this trajectory, put simply, the hunger strikers are dying."
Smith said hundreds of healthcare workers wrote jointly Thursday to Justice Secretary David Lammy and other senior government and health officials raising concerns about the handling of the hunger strike.
'Weak'
Asked about it in parliament Wednesday, Prime Minister Keir Starmer said "rules and procedures" were being followed.
His government outlawed Palestine Action in July after activists, protesting the Israel's war on Gaza, broke into a UK air force base and caused an estimated £7 million ($9.3 million) of damage.
Some of those on hunger strike are charged in relation to that incident.
Palestine Action co-founder Huda Ammori challenged the ban in July, and High Court judges are expected to rule at a later date on whether to uphold it.
Campaigners claim the prison action is the largest coordinated in the UK since the 1981 hunger strike by IRA inmates in Northern Ireland demanding political prisoner status.
Then, Bobby Sands was the first of 10 Irish republican hunger strikers to die after refusing food for 66 days.
"The state let them die, and now that is what they're doing," Rahma Hoxha, whose sister Teuta Hoxha has refused food for 40 days, told reporters.
"Even though she's feeling very weak, she's quite firm for her demands to be met," she said.
The inmates' demands include the government lifting its Palestine Action ban and closing an Israel-linked defence firm.
But Francesca Nadin, of the Prisoners for Palestine group campaigning for the eight, said Thursday that "we can end this situation safely" if Lammy agreed to a meeting with their lawyers.
The legal team spearheading their cases - with the support of several MPs including veteran leftwinger Jeremy Corbyn - said it had repeatedly written to Lammy and his ministry requesting a meeting but had been rebuffed.
The Ministry of Justice did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Shahmina Alam, sister of hunger striker Kamran Ahmed - who has been refusing food for 39 days and been in hospital twice - said his family were anxiety-ridden.
"I do not want to receive the call that my brother has succumbed, succumbed to this hunger strike. His heart is slowing down. So what are we waiting for? For it to stop?"