Nine Cubans detained for months at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba continue to refuse food and water, insisting they be resettled in a third country, a human rights activist said Friday in Miami.

``When they left Cuba, they were looking for freedom, but found themselves detained, some for up to a year,'' said Miami activist Gladys Perez. ``They say they won't eat or drink until the authorities decide their fate.''

The nine on the hunger strike -- which started Dec. 16 -- and 43 others were intercepted at sea in different groups as they attempted to reach the United States on flimsy rafts.

But because they were intercepted outside U.S. territory, they were sent to the base pending a review of any asylum claim, as authorized by a U.S.-Cuba migration agreement.

Officials from the U.S. State Department and Immigration and Naturalization Services told The Herald this week that the Cubans in Guantanamo are considered political refugees and would be relocated to a still-undetermined third country by mid-January. In the past, refugees have been sent to Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.

The Cubans said they are tired of empty promises.

``We will not stop the strike until we leave here,'' said Rafael Oro Blanco, 32, who has been at the base since April. ``We will not accept any medical attention because we are tired of being lied to. Every month we are told [we'll be relocated] next month.''

Perez said she is especially concerned about reports that the seven Cuban children on the base do not attend school, that five strikers have been taken to a prison inside the base and that a stethoscope being used by a Cuban nurse to check a fellow striker was taken away.

The Herald could not reach authorities on the base Friday.

Under the landmark immigration accord with Cuba, which in 1995 brought an end to an exodus of tens of thousands of rafters from the island, the Clinton administration and Cuba agreed to discourage flight from the island by illegal means.

Today, migrants are encouraged to apply for refugee status at the U.S. mission in Havana, which has reserved at least 20,000 slots a year for Cubans.