Jailed Egyptian-UK activist looks ‘very thin’ after 98 days on hunger strike: sister

Jailed Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abdel-Fattah has lost nearly a third of his body weight after spending 98 days on a hunger strike, his sister says, following a brief Eid visit to his prison outside Cairo.

“He’s lost 29 percent of his original weight,” says Sanaa Seif, who saw her brother for 20 minutes behind glass. “He looked very thin, but composed,” she wrote in a post on her Facebook page.

Abdel-Fattah, 43, began refusing food in March in solidarity with his mother, Laila Soueif, a renowned academic who has herself been on hunger strike for 250 days to demand her son’s release.

Her strike began on September 29, 2024 — the day her son was due for release after serving a five-year sentence.

In May, a United Nations panel of experts said his detention was arbitrary and called for his immediate release.

The activist is consuming only herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts, his family says.

His mother, 69, was hospitalized last week in London with “critically low” blood sugar, after resuming a full hunger strike.