FORTEAN FOLLOW-UPS
Hero rat retires, killer historian sentenced, and the US grapples with Havana Syndrome
HERO RAT [FT400:10]
Magawa, the African giant pouched rat who last September was awarded the PDSA Gold Medal – sometimes described as the George Cross for animals – for his “life-saving devotion to duty”, has retired at the age of seven. Malen, his handler, said the rat was “slowing down” with age and she wants to “respect his needs”. Magawa was part of an initiative by the Belgian charity Apopo to train the animals, known as HeroRATS, to detect landmines. In his fiveyear career Magawa sniffed out 71 landmines and many other unexploded munitions in Cambodia. Malen said: “Magawa’s performance has been unbeaten, and I have been proud to work side by side with him.” The rat will remain with the charity for a few more weeks to “mentor” new recruits and help them settle in. BBC News, 4 June 2021.
HAVANA SYNDROME [FT359:22, 360:14, 363:4, 370:26- 27, 382:10-11, 389:26-27, 401:9, 407:21]
Since 2016 US and Canadian diplomats and other staff at Embassies have been reporting bizarre and long-lasting health problems including dizziness, loss of balance, hearing loss, anxiety and “cognitive fog”. Initially reported by US diplomats in Cuba in 2016, the phenomenon has also been experienced by US officials in China and Russia, with isolated incidents reported as occurring in the US itself as well as London, Colombia, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan.
Now more than 20 US staff in Vienna, Austria, have reported being affected by similar problems, with the New Yorker magazine reporting that Vienna is “the new hot spot” for Havana Syndrome, as the affliction has been dubbed. The US State Department are apparently taking the claims of the victims seriously and are “vigorously investigating” as Vienna now has more reported cases of the syndrome than anywhere apart from the initial outbreak in Havana. The Austrian foreign ministry also says it is “working with the US authorities on jointly getting to the bottom of this”.
The US has a large diplomatic presence in Vienna, including one of the world’s largest CIA stations, and the city has always been a centre for international diplomacy. Austria has long tolerated espionage operations by other countries as well, as long as they don’t threaten Austrian interests. It is currently hosting indirect talks between the US and Iran about getting the 2015 nuclear agreement back on track.
Despite this new cluster, US authorities remain no closer to determining the cause of Havana Syndrome. While it has been seen in some quarters as a mass hysteria event, notably by the FBI, the US Government believes it is the result of an unknown aggressor using an unidentified weapon. Their working hypothesis is that Russian military intelligence operatives have been aiming microwave radiation devices at US officials, possibly to steal data from their computers or smartphones, and have caused physical harm to the people they targeted as a side effect. Some microwave experts do not feel this is likely due to the size of the device that would be needed and the problems of signal attenuation over distance, particularly when there are obstacles like walls in the way, and others have suggested sonic weaponry as another possibility.
While it may be some time before we have any clear idea of what is behind Havana Syndrome, the US Government appears to be taking the matter seriously. In December 2020, the CIA announced a focused investigation into the phenomenon, something that its new director, Williams Burns, confirmed this March, although no timeline for its work has yet been given. In June, the Senate passed the bipartisan Helping American Victims Afflicted by Neurological Attacks (HAVANA) Act, which provides additional financial and medical resources for American officials suffering with symptoms. Newyorker. com, 16 July; BBC News, 18 July; nymag.com, 24 Aug 2021.
O LUCKY (UNLUCKY) MAN! [FT309:4-5]
Erwin Tumiri was one of just six people to survive a plane crash on 28 November 2016 near Medellin, Colombia, that killed 71 of the 77 people on board, including 19 players from the Brazilian Chapecoense football team. Tumiri was one of the crew on the LaMia Flight 2933. The only survivors besides Tumiri were three Chapecoense players and two other passengers.
On 2 March 2021, Tumiri, now 30, cheated death for a second time after a packed coach tumbled 500ft (150m) down an embankment near the Bolivian city of Cochabamba, killing 21 passengers and injuring more than 30. Tumiri escaped with knee injuries and scratches. “I was listening to music on my mobile phone when I heard people screaming,” he said
from Arebalo Hospital in Cochabamba. “I felt the coach was going to overturn, and it did. The only thing I could do was hold onto the seat in front of me. I remained conscious and managed to crawl out when the vehicle came to a halt.” Metro, 4 Mar 2021.
MALIAN NONUPLETS [FT408:9]
Halima Cissé’s record for the most surviving children delivered at a single birth, set in May when she gave birth to nine living children, looked to be shortlived when news broke in early June of a South African woman giving birth to 10 children, all of whom had survived. Gosiame Thamara Sithole, 37, was reported to have delivered the 10 babies in a Pretoria hospital on 7 June, 29 weeks into her pregnancy, five naturally and five by cæsarean section. Apparently, this was a surprise to everyone, as scans had shown only eight babies in the womb. “It’s seven boys and three girls. I am happy.
I am emotional. I can’t talk much,” Sithole’s boyfriend, Teboho Tsotetsi, told Pretoria News after the birth. The BBC said one African official had confirmed the births to them, but another said they were yet to see the babies. A week later, though, on 14 June, the South African Government was still trying to verify the claim. Relatives and neighbours insisted it was true, but a local government department said it had no record of the babies’ birth at any of the province’s hospitals. The story, however, had gripped the nation and the couple were sent many donations to help them cope, including £50,000 from a single organisation.
The mystery deepened on 16 June when the family of Teboho Tsotetsi issued a statement saying that he had not actually seen the babies and had relied on a call from Sithole to tell him of the birth.
He also said that he had made several attempts to visit her in hospital but had been unable to do so because she had not disclosed where she was or what condition the babies were in, leading them to conclude that the children did not exist. They also reported Sithole to the police as missing. The South African organisation Independent Media continued to insist the births were real and that there had been a “cover-up of mammoth proportions” to conceal medical negligence, but also conceded that they had not seen the children either and did not know where they were. South Africa’s National Department of Health’s own investigation concluded that there was no evidence the children existed, and confirmed that there was no record of their delivery in any of the public health facilities in the region – indeed, there seemed to be no evidence that Sithole had actually been pregnant at all, despite photos showing her with an enormously swollen belly.
On 17 June, police following up on the missing person report found Sithole at a relative’s house in Rabie Ridge near Johannesburg, without the infants, and took her in for psychiatric assessment, after which she was admitted to Tembisa Hospital’s psychiatric ward. Via her lawyer Sithole complained she was being held against her will and accused Tsotetsi’s relatives of trying to appropriate donations from the public meant for the newborns, despite their claims that the children did not exist. So far, however, no one has been able to produce the mysterious decuplets and it is unclear what exactly has happened to all the donations. In Morocco, though, Halima Cissé’s nine children continue to do well, breathing unaided and gaining weight. Africa.cgtn.com, 3 June; BBC News, 9 June; dailysabah. com, 13 June; aa.com.tr, 16 June; mirror.co.uk, 21 June; inews. co.uk, 21 June 2021.
CROYDON CAT KILLER [FT341:4, 373:18-20, 377:23]
After four years of investigation and over £130,000 spent, in 2018 Croydon police concluded that an alleged serial cat killer who locals feared was preying on their pets did not exist and that the deaths were the result of mundane causes such as road accidents and foxes. In Brighton, when cats started dying or limping home gravely injured, it was a different story. Tina Randall found her 11-yearold cat Gideon bleeding from a serious injury in November 2018. “He was fading,” she said. “I immediately thought it was a stab wound.” Fortunately, Gideon recovered after emergency veterinary treatment, but other cats named Hendrix, Tommy, Hannah, Alan, Nancy, Gizmo, Kyo, Ollie and Cosmo were not so lucky. Sussex Police failed to make headway in identifying the killer until a CCTV system belonging to the owner of one of the cats who had been killed caught a new attack on camera. This allowed police to identify 54-year-old Steven Bouquet, a security guard, as the culprit and on arrest he was found with pictures of two of the cats he had killed on his phone. In all he had stabbed at least 16 cats in Brighton between October 2018 and June 2019, killing nine and injuring seven, and in June 2021 he was found guilty of 16 counts of criminal damage and possession of a knife. BBC News, 30 June 2021.
‘NAPOLEON’ DISMEMBERS LOVER [FT387:4]
Eminent Russian historian
Oleg Sokolov, a Napoleon specialist who taught history at St Petersburg State University and had been awarded France’s Legion d’Honneur in 2003, was arrested in November 2019 after being hauled out of the Moika River in St Petersburg, drunk. On his arrest the backpack he was carrying was found to contain a woman’s arms. Sokolov, 64, admitted that these belonged to his former student and lover Anastasia Yeshchenko, 24, whom he had murdered “in the heat of the moment” and dismembered. In December 2020 Sokolov was sentenced to 12 years and six months in a strict regime penal colony for murder and illegal possession of firearms. S.Telegraph, 27 Dec 2020.