Ex-Guantanamo inmate moving from Uruguay to South Africa: report

A former Guantanamo inmate who was resettled in Uruguay has departed for South Africa, local media said Thursday.

The Syrian Jihad Diyab — who launched a hunger strike earlier this year to demand relocation to another country — has already left Uruguay, according to the South American country’s El Pais newspaper.

Diyab is one of six former Guantanamo inmates resettled in Uruguay as refugees in 2014, part of a deal with the United States to help close the controversial prison set up in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Accused of terrorist links, the men — four Syrians, a Palestinian and a Tunisian — were never charged or tried. They had been cleared for release but could not be sent to their home countries because of unrest there.

Diyab began his hunger strike in a Venezuelan prison, where he was detained after leaving Uruguay undetected and showing up at the Uruguayan consulate in Caracas, demanding to be taken to his family in Turkey.

Venezuela deported him back to Uruguay, a country he had accused of failing to do enough to reunite him with his family.

Diyab is a veteran hunger striker, having staged prolonged hunger strikes during his 12 years at Guantanamo to protest his detention.

He ended the latest hunger strike in October after reportedly receiving a relocation offer.