This is the Antarctica research crew trapped in icy hell with co-worker who ‘snapped and started attacking them’
Nine members of an Antarctic expedition are locked up together at a research station 2,000 miles from civilization.
And one of them is a madman — accused of violently beating, threatening and sexually harassing at least two of his teammates.
The Post can reveal that the South African crew of three women and six men includes a glamorous doctor with her own skincare line and a deputy team leader who helped produce a short horror film during a previous stay at the station — along with engineers and a meteorologist.
The researchers on South Africa’s SANAE IV outpost won’t be relieved until December, when temperatures at the South Pole are at their warmest for the year and seasonal ice storms pass.
In happier times, the colleagues were all seen smiling together before they set off on their extended mission.
Pictures show the crew looking chummy together last November, shortly before they set off on the ill-fated 13-month mission on the base in Queen Maud Land, which is surrounded by a glacial ice sheet.
But the broad smiles and thumbs-ups they flashed as they posed for pre-mission photos proved short-lived.
According to urgent emails fired off to authorities from the remote base, an unidentified male member of the South African crew stuck at SANAE IV became “deeply disturbed” within weeks of arriving.
This was despite, the complainant alleged, authorities being warned about his behavior even before the team left South Africa on Feb. 1.
One of the ladies
Another of the ladies
The message, which was sent Feb. 27, alleged the crew member assaulted and sexually harassed colleagues, and even threatened to kill one of them, creating “an environment of fear and intimidation,” the Guardian reports.
“His behavior has escalated to a point that is deeply disturbing. I remain deeply concerned about my own safety, constantly wondering if I might become the next victim,” the email said, as first reported on by South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper.
The identity of the crew member believed to have snapped was not released. But the roster of the researchers is as follows, according to the official South African National Antarctic Programme website:
- Mbulaheni Kelcey Maewashe, team leader and a senior meteorological technician
- Nivek Ghazi, deputy team leader and an electronics engineer
- Dr. Sihle Mpho Lawana
- Nkululeko Welcome Khoza, a mechanical engineer
- Athenkosi Mabope, a communications engineer
- Geomarr van Tonder, an electronics engineer
- Allowed Tumelo Seepane, an instrumentation technician
- Alian Stuart Jacobs, a diesel mechanic
- Lebogang James Tsime, a electro-mechanical engineer
Happier Times
Currently, there are no plans to rescue the research team, leaving them trapped at the base without any outside contact until December, when a supply ship is due to moor up.
“There were no incidents that required any of the nine overwintering team members to be brought back to Cape Town. All on the base is calm and under control,” South Africa’s Environment Minister Dion George told the New York Times.
The ministry later said it was “not uncommon” for some crew members to experience an “adjustment period” after arriving in the desolate location.
Home Base
South African authorities insist they are in contact with the base on a near-daily basis.
“The department is responding to these concerns with the utmost urgency and have had a number of interventions with all parties concerned at the base,” Peter Mbelengwa, communications chief of the South African Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, said in a statement.
The government claimed that the dispute was over “a task the team leader wanted the team to do — a weather dependent task that required a schedule change.”
Conditions on the base are currently reasonable — with highs of around 15 degrees — though it’s still “summer” at the South Pole. From March through September, temperatures can drop to minus-75 Fahrenheit, and it stays dark for months, with the sun never showing its face.
Brutal winds of more than 60 mph can batter the landscape.
SANAE IV, which is about 100 miles from the edge of the ice shelf, was founded in 1997 as a permanent research station on Antarctica — designed specifically to withstand the punishing conditions for decades. It’s built on the side of a massive ice cliff so that snow will pile up against it and help shield it against the wind and cold.
In an eerie twist, the previous team on the base, which included Ghazi, produced a short horror movie about life on the base back in 2023, it has been revealed.
“Those That Are Lost But Not Forgotten,” a horror short, was submitted as an entry to the Antarctic Film Festival two years ago.
The film features an expedition team that leaves the station and dies in the Antarctic wastes — and then their ghosts come back to haunt the remaining crew of the outpost.
“The creepy events that occur around the station frighten the remaining members causing them to run out of fear leaving the station,” the movie’s description reads.
Despite the recent scandal, the base is currently hiring for several vacancies, including two slots for electronics engineer posts.
The two-year contracts on the base pay a salary of just under 600,000 South African rand ($32,700) and include food, accommodation, and protective clothing.
“The incumbent must be able to work independently with minimal support under extreme pressure and without supervision,” the job description reads.
SANSA did not respond immediately to The Post’s requests for comment.
https://nypost.com/2025/03/19/world-news/antarctica-research-crew-trapped-in-icy-hell-with-co-worker-who-snapped-and-started-attacking-them/
The research group are trapped with a colleague who assaulted and threatened to kill one of his peers.
The team of nine scientists from South Africa are currently stationed at the Sanae IV base, a research centre located on the northern tip of Antarctica some 4,000 kilometres from their homeland.
Extreme weather makes leaving and entering nearly impossible, and they are set to remain on the mission until December despite calls for them to be evacuated.
The group of scientists trapped in a tiny base in Antarctica have sent an email pleading to be rescued after they say a member of their team threatened to kill another colleague. The base is located in Vesleskarvet, Queen Maud Land, Antarctica
A researcher on South Africa's Sanae IV base sent a worrying email claiming one team member had attacked them and was issuing death threats. The man in question is also accused of sexually harassing another researcher.
They reportedly pleaded to be rescued, but an emergency evacuation operation would take at least two weeks to reach them - if weather conditions remain stable.
The author of the email, which was shared with South Africa's Sunday Times, wrote: 'Regrettably, his behaviour has escalated to a point that is deeply disturbing.
'Specifically, he physically assaulted [X], which is a grave violation of personal safety and workplace norm. Furthermore, he threatened to kill [X], creating an environment of fear and intimidation.
'I remain deeply concerned about my own safety, constantly wondering if I might become the next victim.'
Ahead of their expedition to the base, members of the group shared pictures together and described their excitement at partaking.
One of the team members posted on social media about their 'adventures' at the remote base in recent days, and previously described the 'thrill' at spending months the base with the small team.
A South African government official confirmed that one of the team member's threatening behaviour was triggered by 'a dispute over a task the team leader wanted the team to do – a weather-dependent task that required a schedule change'.
The author of the email seen by South Africa's Sunday Times expressed immense concern over their colleague's 'increasingly egregious behaviour' and called for immediate action to ensure their own safety and that of the team as a whole.
'I am experiencing significant difficulty in feeling secure in his presence,' the author wrote.
Neither the author nor the accused have been named.
Scientist who just returned from Antarctic SANAE IV base where assault occurred reveals harrowing details of living in extreme isolation
A scientist who just returned from the remote Antarctica base where a crew member reportedly snapped and threatened to kill the team leader has opened up about the extreme, “unpredictable” environment on the frozen continent that can push many to their mental limits.
Dr Herman Van Niekerk, a geologist at the University of Johannesburg, has just come back from a two-month expedition to SANAE IV, the Antarctic base where a South African team of scientists have pleaded for help following the “deeply disturbing” behavior of a crew member.
“The Antarctic is often romanticized, but when people realize what’s waiting for them, well, there’s not a lot of people who feel they’re up to it,” Van Niekerk told The Telegraph.
“I’ve taken students out there and some of them just can’t handle the isolation, the extreme and frightening weather conditions, the perspective you lose when you can’t judge distances in the whiteness.”
In a situation described as a “real-life horror movie,” one of the nine trapped crew members sent a desperate email about a coworker they said violently beat, threatened and sexually harassed at least two others on the base, as first reported by South Africa’s Sunday Times newspaper.
They described their colleague’s descent into “deeply disturbing” behavior, saying it had created “an environment of fear and intimidation. I remain deeply concerned about my own safety, constantly wondering if I might become the next victim.”
All crew members undergo “psychometric tests” before heading to the base, Van Niekerk explained, “but you just can’t predict how that will affect people in reality when there’s no life for miles.”
Despite close vetting, Van Niekerk described the moment when one student freaked out.
“People only reveal who they are when they’re exposed to the extreme conditions,” he said, describing how the student refused to leave their tent on the expedition while they were stranded some 124 miles from SANAE IV.
Dr Herman Van Niekerk
The worst is yet to come
The crew — stranded until at least December on the 1997-built base 2,500 miles from South Africa — includes engineers, scientists, and a doctor, but no one to manage security, Van Niekerk explained.
“There’s a doctor, mechanics and members of the South African National Space Agency. But there is nobody in charge of security, no firearms or anything like that,” Van Niekerk said.
On top of the deathly cold, with temperatures plummeting to lows of -9F, and winds reaching up to 135 mph, the upcoming Antarctic winter presents a fresh disorientating challenge.
From March, the base will be in almost complete darkness for the next 10 months.
“When there’s no daylight, you worry about people getting onto a different time cycle, with some people awake while everybody else is sleeping. It’s an extremely difficult environment,” he said.
There’s a rules list — but it’s not always followed
Van Niekerk has been taking teams of students out to the base for the past three years and described the conditions inside SANAE IV, made up of three two-story blocks.
Block A houses the laboratories, accommodation and a hospital wing, Block B features “a bar, a games room,” and a movie room, while Block C includes vital machinery such as “generators, water storage and purification,” he said.
A general rules list for crew members is up in the dining room, including guidelines on alcohol.
“You take what you need and have to make it last the whole season,” he said.
Romance between crew members is “spoken about and it’s frowned upon,” Van Niekerk said.
“But these are people and you can’t predict what’s going to happen. Relationships do start down there,” he said. “I know of people who were down there in 2016-17. They met there and got married and they’ve got two kids now.”
‘There are a lot of unknowns‘
Van Niekerk has described the “unknowns” and the loneliness that can make life on the edge of civilization particularly difficult, especially on the rare occasions they have to leave the base.
“Mostly when I’m out on snowmobiles. That’s unsettling because you can’t see the crevasses. The storms also come in very fast, even in the winter. There are a lot of unknowns,” he said.
The assault of a team member on SANAE IV’s team leader has been confirmed, and the individual who carried out the assault has reportedly since apologized by letter, South Africa’s Environment Minister Dion George said this week.
Despite that, there are no plans for the crew to have any direct contact with the outside world until December at the earliest, when a supply vessel is set to dock at Queen Maud Land after a 10-day voyage from Cape Town.
Even if authorities wanted to, it would be all but impossible for a rescue mission to the base now that Antarctic winter has started.
“That would be very difficult,” Van Kierken said. “It takes 10-14 days by boat and then a helicopter ride — weather permitting — for us in the summer. [Winter] would be difficult. I don’t think we’ll see those people again until December.”
https://nypost.com/2025/03/20/world-news/antarctic-scientist-reveals-details-about-sanae-iv-base/
