On 5 May 1981 IRA Volunteer, Hunger Striker and Fermanagh South/Tyrone MP Bobby Sands died in the H-Block prison hospital at Long Kesh. He had endured 65 days without food, and had spent his last two days in a coma. Sands’ emaciated body, lying in state at his home in Belfast’s Twinbrook estate, told the story of the torment and suffering which he had endured.
Sands’ condition had deteriorated steadily until he finally fell into a coma the previous Sunday morning from which he never regained consciousness. Lying in another cell in the prison hospital, South Derry Hunger Striker, Francis Hughes was reported to be periodically slipping into unconsciousness also. And there was increasing fear that he too was close to death.
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