Twenty-one Cubans detained at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, completed the fifth day of a hunger strike in a state of exhaustion Friday, a detainee acting as their spokesman said.

Placido Hernandez Fuentes phoned the report to the anti-Castro organization Agenda Cuba, based in Miami. The Cubans vow to fast until U.S. immigration authorities recognize their status as political refugees and they are removed from the Navy base, where they say their human rights are being violated.

Most of the hunger strikers were intercepted in the Florida Straits while attempting to reach the United States by boat and are awaiting repatriation under the immigration pact between Washington and Havana.