Notification comes after all contact with Manning’s attorneys and outside contacts stopped for at least 36 hours amid rumors of a health crisis

Lawyers for Chelsea Manning, the US soldier who covertly provided secret diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks, are no longer in the dark about their client’s condition after several days of demanding information from military authorities on reports that Manning had been hospitalized.

Manning, who is six years into a 35-year military prison sentence for revealing state secrets, alarmed her attorneys and outside contacts earlier this week when all contact stopped for at least 36 hours. The total loss of contact came on the heels of unconfirmed media reports that Manning had experienced a health crisis, and lawyers for the soldier railed against the defense department for keeping them in the dark while details of Manning’s medical status apparently leaked.

“The prison has notified us that Chelsea was hospitalized and remains under a doctor’s care,” Nancy Hollander, a lawyer for Manning, said Friday. Hollander is the lead attorney on Manning’s appeal of her 35-year sentence, which Hollander has called “grossly unfair”.

“At this time her doctors are recommending against a call and we are respecting those recommendations but are in close touch with the facility and will continue to monitor her condition and hope to connect with her soon,” Hollander said. “To protect her privacy, that is all we can say at the moment.”

The Department of Defense has said only that Manning had been taken to a hospital and returned to the barracks. On Tuesday, a prearranged legal call between Hollander and Manning was cancelled. Hollander was told earlier this week that Friday was the earliest day a call could be arranged between Manning and her legal team.

“We’re shocked and outraged that … no one at the army has given a shred of information to her legal team,” Hollander said Wednesday. “We call on the army to immediately connect Chelsea Manning to her lawyers and friends who care deeply about her wellbeing and are profoundly distressed by the complete lack of official communication about Chelsea’s current situation.”

Manning has written as a columnist for the Guardian since she began serving her prison sentence. In a recent contribution, she reacted to the Pentagon’s announcement that it would allow transgender members of the armed forces to serve openly, critiquing some of the proposed hurdles to service based on her personal experiences.

Her years in military prison have been punctuated by accusations of mistreatment. During her incarceration with the Quantico Marine corps, she was stripped naked at night. Last August, military authorities threatened her with open-ended solitary confinement for keeping an expired tube of toothpaste in her cell.