Antarctica stabbing: what do we know?
Victim rushed to hospital in Chile after incident in research station 500 miles off coast
An employee at a remote Russian research station in Antarctica has been charged with attempted murder after allegedly stabbing his colleague.
The man, named as Sergey Savitsky, is accused of attacking his colleague on 9 October in the Bellingshausen Station canteen, delivering “at least one blow to the body”, reports Russia's Interfax news agency. The victim, identified in the report by the initial “B”, was rushed to a hospital in Chile.
Both the accused and B had lived together in the station, located more than 500 miles off the southern coast of Argentina on the harbour of King George Island, for six months before the attack.
Savitsky had reportedly been suffering from mental health issues while on the station. According to HuffPost, the attack resulted from increased “tensions in a confined space”.
He was said to be flown to St Petersburg, Russia, where he was arrested at the airport. He surrendered voluntarily and has been placed under house arrest.
Bellingshausen Station was founded by the Soviet Union in 1968 and named after the 19th-century Russian Antartic explorer. It was used as a major fuel depot for the Soviet Antartic fishing fleet. Nowadays, it has a maximum capacity of 40 people and an average winter population of 13. King George Island is the largest of the South Shetland Islands.
