WASHINGTON, June 10: Three Arab prisoners at the US navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, died on Saturday in apparent suicide, the US military said.

“Two Saudis and one Yemeni, each located in Camp 1, were found unresponsive and not breathing in their cells by guards,” said the statement issued by the US Southern Command, which looks after the prison camp.

The military said attempts to resuscitate the detainees failed and they were pronounced dead by a physician at Guantanamo, which holds about 500 foreigners captured mainly in Afghanistan.

The US military did not release the names of the deceased. These are the first deaths at Guantanamo since it started being used as a prison camp in 2002.

The US military said the bodies were being treated ‘with the utmost respect’ and an investigation had begun.

Camp 1 is one of the four prison camps at Guantanamo where prisoners who are considered cooperative and less dangerous are kept.

During a recent visit to the camp this correspondent saw prisoners being kept in low-ceiling cells with iron-nets that allows them to talk to each other.

But even these so-called cooperative prisoners had very tense relations with their guards who feared entering the corridors unarmed.

The less cooperative prisoners are sent to other camps with fewer facilities as a punishment and those at other camps are often brought here if they cooperate. Most of the prisoners at these camps have been incarcerated for four years without trial.