Polar scares: assault in the Antarctic

Scientists working on a remote Antarctica research station have pleaded to be rescued after accusing one of their team of assault.

The nine-person team had only just arrived for a 13-month overwinter mission at South Africa's Sanae IV Antarctic base when officials in Pretoria received an email saying a team member had become violent. The man was "accused of physical assault, sexual harassment and 'deeply disturbing behaviour'", said Newsweek.

Things have settled a little since then. Environment Ministry officials "activated a response plan", and the alleged perpetrator has "shown remorse", written "a formal apology to the victim" and "willingly participated in further psychological evaluation", said the BBC. The allegations of sexual harassment are still being investigated.

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The incident has drawn worldwide attention to the extreme challenges of living and working with others in a cold, dark and isolated Antarctic base.

Violence and intoxication

Most Antarctic research missions "go off without a hitch" because of the "extensive preparation, background checks and psychological evaluations" each team member undergoes, said the Daily Mail. But there have been some notable incidents in recent years.

In 2023, US investigators travelled to Antarctica after concerns about sexual violence at America's McMurdo Station were revealed by The Associated Press. "Claims of harassment or assault" made by women at the base had been "minimised by their employers", said AP.

In 2009, a "drunk station staff member" seems to have "got into a fist fight with the chief cook" at a South Korean research station, said Vice. And, in 2018, a "dangerously intoxicated" Russian welder, stationed at the Bellingshausen Station on Waterloo Island, south of Chile, responded to a colleague who was teasing him by stabbing him "in the chest several times". The colleague survived, and the welder surrendered – but, given the base's remote location, couldn't be removed by Russian police for 11 days.

'Very, very extreme experience'

There are about 10,000 scientists stationed in Antarctica during the summer but, in the harsh winter, that number drops to 1,000. Winter temperatures can fall "as low as -75C", and those stationed at the South Pole will experience "complete darkness for several months", said The Independent.

Antarctic scientists are trained to be "physically and mentally prepared for the particular hardships of life" and must have "psychometric testing beforehand". But it's "a very very extreme experience – there's no doubt about that", former Antarctic base commander John Dudeney told the paper. Relationships within research teams can quickly become "challenging" and, "sometimes, teams fragment".

It's often sensory deprivation that's the key problem. "If you look out of the window," said Dudeney, "you'll just see a flat, featureless snow plain." With little else to do or see, "small things, tiny things" can "blow up into conflict", Craig Jackson, a professor of workplace health psychology at Birmingham City University, told the BBC.

Anyone who commits a crime in the Antarctic is subject to the law enforcement policies of their home country. But "extracting" any misbehaving individual is not easy, given the climate and conditions. There has to be a "careful assessment of the risk" of sending people in, said Dudeney, "compared with the risk of taking no action".