| Last night Dr. Laila Soueif was admitted to St Thomas’ Hospital in London. Her blood sugar levels dropped to a shocking new low of 1.1mmol/L overnight, at which point she was given glucagon treatment, a hormone that induces the liver to break down stored fat to obtain glucose. Laila is still refusing glucose treatment as part of her hunger strike; the glucagon treatment contains no calories or glucose. But the glucagon treatment is dangerous because it can lead to blood acidity, which could ultimately cause cardiac arrest. Her daughter, Sanaa, spoke to the press today outside the hospital. She said:
”Last night I took my mom into hospital. She was still on her feet. Her blood sugar was dropping drastically. But thank God we took her to hospital because after we entered, everything started dropping. Blood sugar, blood pressure, temperature. A couple of hours ago, I thought we're going to lose her. The doctors . . . My mom did a miracle. Her blood sugar was 1.1, which is . . . extremely low. She should have been unconscious. Somehow she was still able to be conscious enough to say, no, I don't want glucose. I want to keep my hunger strike. I want my son. The doctors came up with this innovative idea of giving her protein that helps the body, produce glucose. And they weren't sure if her body would react badly. But it worked. It worked for a couple of hours. I just got a message from my sister saying that, it's a lot of numbers, but it means she's dying, that the ketone levels are too high to measure. So that kind of means that they can't do the things they did last night. Bottom line is we're losing her, and we're really, really . . . there is no time. Keir Starmer needs to act now. Not tomorrow, not Monday now. Right now, it's a miracle. It's the last night. It's a miracle that we still have her. I'm really, really proud of my mom. And I want to remind Keir Starmer of his promise to us. We put our faith in him. Don't let us down, do something and do it today.” *** Laila has lost 36kg - 42% of her starting body weight, and now weighs 49kg. She has not eaten food since September 29th 2024, the date Alaa was supposed to be released from prison. She resumed a full hunger strike on Tuesday 20th May, returning to consuming zero calories, after being on partial hunger strike since the start of March, where she consumed a 300 calorie liquid nutritional supplement each day. Alaa is also now on his 91st day of hunger strike, consuming nothing but herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts, in Wadi El-Natrun prison in Egypt. Laila explained her return to full hunger strike last week saying “Nothing has changed, nothing is happening… We need Alaa released now”. She had previously moved to a partial hunger strike to ‘give some time’ for the UK government to negotiate Alaa’s release, after a phone call between Prime Minister Keir Starmer and President Sisi of Egypt on 28th February. Last Thursday 22nd May Keir Starmer once again spoke to President Sisi and “pressed for the urgent release of British national Alaa Abd El-Fattah so that he can be reunited with his family.” The Prime Minister “underlined how important it is to him to bring an end to the anguish Alaa and his family have faced.” Calls for Alaa’s release have escalated in recent days, after a landmark decision by United Nations’ Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (UNWGAD) that Alaa Abd el-Fattah is arbitrarily detained in Egypt and that Egyptian authorities therefore have an obligation to release him immediately under international law. Yesterday (Thursday 29th May) Former British Ambassador to Egypt, John Casson, and senior UK parliamentarians including Baroness Helena Kennedy KC and Lord Peter Hain wrote to The Times to call for the Foreign Office’s official travel advice to ‘caution against travel to Egypt’ in light of Alaa’s continued unlawful detention. Prime Minister Keir Starmer has given his personal commitment on a number of occasions to resolving Alaa’s case. Most recently at Prime Minister’s Questions on the 21st May he said: “It is incredibly important we do everything we can in this case. I’ve met Laila [Alaa’s mother] and given her my commitment to do everything I possibly can. I have had a number of contacts myself but I’m not going to stop doing everything within my power to secure release.” On the 26th February Keir Starmer told Parliament, again in response to a question from John McDonnell MP: ‘I will do everything I can, to ensure the release in this case, and that includes phone calls as necessary. I've raised it before. I'll raise it again. We raise it, and will continue to do so. I gave my word to the family that that's what I’d do. That I will do, and I will.’ |
