SANAE IV Antarctic Base scientists shaken by alleged assault

A group of scientists who must work together for months in a remote Antarctic Research Station has been shaken after a team member was accused of assault.

Around 10 researchers generally remain at the base managed by South African, which is about 170 km (approximately 105 miles) from the edge of the ice shelf and is difficult to reach.

But a spokesman for the South African government told the BBC that “there was an assault” at the station, after previous accusations of inappropriate behavior from inside the camp.

In an additional message seen by the BBC, the Ministry of Environment of South Africa said it was responding to concerns with “maximum urgency.”

Sunday Times of South Africa, who was the first to inform the story, said the team members had declared rescued.

The Ministry also said that those in the team had been subject to “a series of evaluations that include background verifications, reference verifications, medical evaluation and a psychometric evaluation of qualified professionals”, which all members had clarified.

The SANAE IV research base is more than 4,000 km from continental South Africa and the hard climatic conditions mean that scientists can be cut there for much of the year.

The current team was expected to be at the base of Sanae IV until December.

There have been South African research expeditions since 1959. The Sanae IV base team generally includes a doctor, two mechanics, three engineers, a weather technician and a couple of doctors.

These expeditions, with harsh climatic conditions that require a lot of time that they spend in a confined interior space, are usually executed without incident, and team members have to undergo a variety of psychological evaluations before traveling.

But on Sunday, South Africa Sunday Times reported that a member of the team had sent a warning by email of “deeply disturbing behavior” by a colleague and a “fear environment.”

A South African government spokesman told the BBC that the alleged assault was triggered by “a dispute about a task that the team leader wanted the team to do, a climate dependent task that required a schedule change.”

Incidents in Antarctica are rare, but not without precedents. In 2018 there were reports of a stabbing at the Bellingshausen Research Station operated by Russia.

Psychologists point out the effect that isolation can have on human behavior.

“One thing we know about these rare events, when something bad happens in forced isolation or the work of the capsule, is that small things are often, the small things that can exploit in conflict,” said Craig Jackson, professor of health psychology at the workplace at the University of the City of Birmingham and a member of the British psychological society.

“Therefore, the problems about the hierarchy, about the allocation of the workload, even small things about leisure time or rations or food portions can accelerate rapidly to become something much larger than they are usually,” he told the BBC.

Gabrielle Walker, a scientist and author who has been in expeditions to Antarctica, said that working with such proximity to a small group of colleagues had risks.

“You know exactly how they put their cup of coffee down and what direction the handle points out; you know that they scratch their nose three times before sitting; you know everything about them.

“And in bad circumstances, you can start irritating you … because there is nothing else, there is no other stimulus and you are with people 24/7,” he said.

Sources within the Antarctic research community have told the BBC that South Africa has access to a ship and aircraft with ice capacity if necessary.

But any rescue operation would have to deal with hard climate, with temperatures well below freezing and the possibility of strong winds.