Somali detainees at Guantanamo Bay Somali detainees at Guantanamo Bay There were a total of four Somali detainees in Guantanamo of a total of 778 detainees that have been held in the Guantanamo Bay detention camps, in Cuba since the camps opened on January 11, 2002. The camp population peaked in 2004 at approximately 660. Only nineteen new suspects, all "high value detainees" have been transferred there since the United States Supreme Court's ruling in Rasul v. Bush. As of January 2008 the camp population stand at approximately 285. When the DoD was forced to publish its first official list of detainees, on May 15,
Guantanamo Bay detention camp prison camp was established to detain extraordinarily dangerous people, to interrogate detainees in an optimal setting, and to prosecute detainees for war crimes. In practice, the site has long been used for enemy combatants. The Department of Defense at first kept secret the identity of the individuals held in Guantanamo but, after losing attempts to defy a Freedom of Information Act request from the Associated Press, the U.S. military officially acknowledged holding 779 prisoners in the camp. The facility is operated by the Joint Task Force Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO) of the United States government in Guantanamo Bay Naval Base. Detention areas