Allegations of extreme brutality towards hunger strikers at Guantanamo Bay have been made by several detainees.

Newly-released reports by lawyers working on behalf of the prisoners claim that shocking practices are being used to keep the protesters, one of which is Brighton man Omar Deghayes, alive.

In interviews earlier this month, Yousef Al Shehri, a 21-year-old prisoner taking part in the strike, described unbearable pain as thick tubes were repeatedly shoved up his nose for force-feeding then yanked out with no anaesthesia.

He claims to have seen tubes pulled out of one prisoner's nose and pushed straight into another's, with stomach bile and blood still covering it.

He said soldiers had beaten and laughed at the detainees as they begged for mercy.

Separate accounts by two other prisoners reported the same practices.

Mr Deghayes, a 36-year-old law graduate from Saltdean, has been on hunger strike for ten weeks and his lawyer Clive Stafford-Smith said he was certain he was one of the men undergoing the force-feeding.

The US military will not release details about specific prisoners, even to family members, so it is impossible to check his condition.

The new account was given by Mr Shehri on October 1 to New York lawyer Julia Tarver, who works for Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison, one of the largest law firms in the US.

Tubes as thick as a finger are being used to get high-energy concentrate into the strikers' stomachs. These make noses swell and bleed profusely, cause vomiting and feel "like a piece of metal" inside, said Mr Al Shehri.

Ms Tarver, whose firm is representing 11 Saudi Guantanamo inmates for free, said: "When they vomited up blood, the soldiers mocked and cursed at them, and taunted them with statements like: 'Look what your religion has brought you.'

"Doctors were present as riot guards forcibly removed a tube by placing a foot on one end of the tube and yanking the detainees head back by his hair, causing the tube to be painfully ejected.

"When the detainees saw this they begged to have their tubes remain, but the guards refused.

"Then the guards took tubes from one detainee, and with no sanitisation whatsoever, reinserted it into the nose of a different detainee.

"The detainees could see blood and stomach bile remaining on the tubes."

Mr Stafford-Smith said: "Omar is now so bereft of all hope that he would rather die in a way he controls.

"He is one of the most determined men I have ever met so I am fearful he will succeed."