Dr Laila Soueif, 69, is dangerously close to starving herself to death in protest over her journalist son Alaa’s wrongful imprisonment in Cairo, defying doctors’ predictions
Relatives of a dying mother on hunger strike protesting against her son’s Egypt jailers say there is now a race against time to save her life.
Hospitalised Dr Laila Soueif, 69, is dangerously close to starving herself to death in protest over her British journalist son Alaa’s wrongful imprisonment in Cairo. She has been on near-complete hunger strike for a staggering 267 days and her survival so long has defied predictions by her doctors in St Thomas’ Hospital, in London.
Incredibly she is still fighting to stay alive, despite being on near continuous hunger strike since September, when she began a diet of tea, coffee and rehydration salts. Her film editor daughter Sanaa, 31, told the Daily Mirror exclusively: “We can save my mother’s life if the UK government offers her some hope of Alaa being freed.
“If they tell her something is being done, if there is a consular visit, that may lead her to take glucose needed to stay alive but we are dangerously close to losing her. Alaa, I am sure will be freed but I don’t want it to be too late for my mother. I do not want to lose her.
“We urgently need to hear that there is a new move, some hope soon otherwise we will lose her. The pace from the government is so slow and my mother’s life is hanging on a thread now.”
Dr Souef switched full hunger strike to a partial strike in February, consuming 300 calories a day, after she was admitted to hospital for the first time and Prime Minister Keir Starmer said he had “pressed” Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah El-Sisi to free her son. But her family have heard little else from the UK government since then and she has continued with the full hunger strike.
Now she has lost more than 40% of her body weight and refuses to eat until the UK government offers her some hope of freeing Alaa. Sanaa, who last saw her brother, in a Cairo jail in May, said: “She tries to walk with a walker but with no calories she is burning muscle.
“Until two days ago she could sit upright but now her stomach muscles cannot carry her upper body but she is fighting. We really do not have much time. It is amazing, although extremely weak she is fighting on and this has amazed the doctors.
“A couple of weeks ago she said she needed to die for the government to move on the situation but if she feels hope it will help.” The 43 year-old activist Alaa Abdel Fattah activist is one of Egypt’s best-known political prisoners and was seized in 2019 six months after completing a five year sentence.
He had been convicted of in 2021 of ‘spreading false news’ after sharing a social media post referring to torture in Egypt. His release should have been in September 2024 but Egypt discounted the two years he had spent in detention before his trial.
Sanaa told the Daily Mirror: “I know the government is under pressure and busy with all the talk of wars but they are taking time releasing statements that mean nothing to many of us. “They need to do something urgently so we can tell my mother something is being done, that there is a move towards freeing Alaa. That may save my mother’s life.”
An FCDO spokesperson said: “We are committed to securing Alaa Abd El-Fattah’s release. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have stressed the urgency of the situation in their calls with their counterparts recently, and further engagement at the highest levels of the Egyptian government continues.
“We are deeply concerned by Laila’s hospitalisation. We remain in regular contact with Laila’s family.”