By WALAA HAWARI | ARAB NEWS

RIYADH: Saudi detainees at Guantanamo Bay have expressed appreciation for the efforts of the Saudi Red Crescent (SRC) to connect them with their families.

In a letter of appreciation to the Saudi Red Crescent Association in the Kingdom, detainee Ahmad Al-Darbi said his fellow inmates expressed gratitude for the initiative that facilitated visual contact between them and their relatives.

Only 10 out of a previous total of 129 Saudi detainees now remain at the US prison camp in Cuba, Al-Madinah daily reported, quoting a representative of the detainees’ families, Abdullah Al-Jaid, as saying. The rest have all been released.

Al-Darbi in his handwritten letter of which Arab News received a copy, lauded the efforts of the Red Crescent, which initiated this program in 2009.

The project of connecting detainees and prisoners with their families was adopted by the SRC in 2008 in coordination with the International Committee of the Red Cross. It was inaugurated in Guantanamo in coordination with the prison’s authorities.

In 2009 video calling was approved and 47 such calls between Saudi detainees and their families were facilitated through Skype the following year. READ MORE