Mother of jailed Egyptian activist on brink of death in hunger-strike protest

Laila Soueif, the mother of prominent British-Egyptian activist Alaa Abd el-Fattah, is facing a life-threatening medical emergency after more than eight months on hunger strike, according to her doctors.

The 69-year-old academic began refusing food in protest of her son’s continued imprisonment in Egypt, but her condition has now deteriorated to the point where “sudden death” is a real and immediate risk.

Doctors treating Soueif warned Friday that her blood sugar levels had dropped below 0.6 mmol/L—a threshold so low it is nearly impossible to measure. Her ketone levels, used to detect blood acidity, have soared past 7 mmol/L, indicating advanced acidosis. Without urgent medical intervention, physicians say she could suffer irreversible damage to her heart, brain, or kidneys, or lose consciousness entirely.

Soueif has lost 36kg since beginning her protest, now weighing just 49kg. “Her body’s carbohydrate stores are essentially depleted,” her doctor explained. “She’s surviving on the final reserves of fat. This is not typically compatible with consciousness.”

Her son, Alaa Abd el-Fattah, has long been a symbol of Egypt’s pro-democracy movement. A central figure in the 2011 revolution that brought down President Hosni Mubarak, he has spent most of the past decade in prison. In September 2024, he completed a five-year sentence for “spreading false news,” but Egyptian authorities refused to release him, arguing that his pre-trial detention should not count toward the sentence.

Soueif, who had been surviving on a minimal intake of 300 calories a day since February, announced on May 20 that she would stop eating entirely. Her family says she is now on the edge. “Bottom line is we're losing her… there is no time,” her daughter Sanaa Seif told reporters outside St Thomas’s Hospital in London. “Keir Starmer needs to act now. Not tomorrow, not Monday. Now. Right now.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer has previously said he is personally committed to securing Abd el-Fattah’s release and reportedly raised the case with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi in a February call. But activists say progress has stalled.

Meanwhile, Abd el-Fattah himself is now on day 92 of his own hunger strike from Wadi El-Natrun prison. He reportedly fell seriously ill in April, suffering from vomiting, extreme stomach pain, and dizziness.

In a development that adds legal pressure to the case, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention ruled this week that Abd el-Fattah’s imprisonment is unlawful and violates international law. The group has called for his immediate release.