London mother on hunger strike is 'on death's door'
Laila Soueif is campaigning to free her son Alaa Abdel Fattah from an Egyptian jail
Last updated 26th Feb 2025
The family of a British-Egyptian man currently in prison in Egypt says his mother is on death's door due to a hunger strike for his release.
Alaa Abdel Fattah has been detained in Egypt since 2019 and was jailed for five years in 2021 after being accused of spreading false news.
His mother Laila Soueif, a mathematics professor, started her hunger strike after authorities failed to free him on a scheduled release date of the 29th of September 2024.
She was hospitalised earlier this week and is currently on day 150 of the hunger strike, surviving on just herbal tea, black coffee and rehydration salts.
Since starting the strike, she has lost almost 5 stone of body weight.
Her nephew Omar Hamilton, who is also working on the campaign for Alaa's freedom, said Laila is on 'deaths door'.
'This is very difficult moment. She is at St Thomas's hospital. We were all there yesterday. This is now the acute moment of what has been 10 years of crisis. Our lives have been on hold the entire time he has been in prison. We've been doing everything we can to get him out'.
Omar told us his aunt took this decision because she felt like she has no choice
'She's been on hunger strike now for 150 days because she felt like this was the only way she could do anything that might change the dialogue on his condition. It seems that the plan or the intention of the Egyptian regime is for him to spend the rest of his life in prison.
'She is just an individual civilian, she is a maths teacher at her university. She doesn't have any power really. All she was left with was this decision to put her body and her life on the line in the hope that this creates enough of a story, enough of a scandal, enough of an outpouring of public attention and good will to force some change here'.
Speaking at PMQ's today, the Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer said he has continued to bring up Alaa's release whenever he has spoken to the Egyptian authorities.
'I did meet the family just a few days ago and it is an incredibly difficult decision for them. I will do everything I can to ensure the release, and that includes phone calls, I have raised it before and I will raise it again. I gave my word to the family that that is what I will do'.
Omar Hamilton says his family is now deeply concerned for Laila Soueif's health, saying doctors are worried about her.
'She's not good. The main issue is her blood sugar keeps going down. It's been going down for months.
'The doctors who saw her yesterday were shocked she could still talk and was still lucid. We got a letter from the doctor yesterday that said she is at very high risk of sudden death and will be continuingly at risk until some change, some glucose gets into her system.
'She just cant accept that until some at least minimum marker of progress has been met.
'She can't go through 150 days of hunger strike and then just quit for nothing'.
A government spokesperson for the Foreign Office said in a statement:
“We are concerned to hear of Mrs Soueif’s hospitalisation and remain in regular contact with her family.
“Securing the release of Mr El-Fattah remains an absolute priority, so that he can be reunited with his family. The Prime Minister recently met with Mrs Soueif and made clear that he will do all that he can to secure the release of Mr El-Fattah.
“We continue to press on his case at the highest levels of the Egyptian Government. This includes the Prime Minister writing to President Sisi and the Foreign Secretary raising this case with the Egyptian Foreign Minister a number of times, including most recently on the 23rd of January.”