American diplomats serving in Cuba suffered injuries including mild traumatic brain injury from mysterious “sonic harassment attacks,” the labor union representing U.S. Foreign Service officers said Friday.
The American Foreign Service Association said it has met or spoken with 10 victims since the health problems came to light last month. The health concerns date to late 2016 but were revealed only when the State Department said in August that it had expelled two Cuban diplomats as a rebuke to the Cuban government.
The State Department has not explained why it did not make the expulsions public when they happened in May.
“AFSA strongly encourages the Department of State and the U.S. Government to do everything possible to provide appropriate care for those affected, and to work to ensure that these incidents cease and are not repeated,” the group said in a statement.
The State Department said last month that as many as 16 people suffered symptoms. U.S. officials have said the Americans were harmed by an unknown sonic device or attack that damaged their hearing and caused other health problems. The injuries occurred while the Americans were serving at the U.S. Embassy in Havana and living in housing provided by the Cuban government.
The Trump administration has not blamed the Cuban government for the harm the Americans suffered but says the expulsions were a protest of Cuba’s failure to protect diplomats as required under the Vienna Convention.
“We’re not assigning responsibility at this point. We don’t know who the perpetrator was of these incidents,” State Department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said last month.
The Cuban government has denied it harmed diplomats and is cooperating with an FBI investigation, officials said.
AFSA’s statement provides the most complete public view yet of the range of symptoms suffered by the Americans, none of whom have spoken publicly.
“Diagnoses include mild traumatic brain injury and permanent hearing loss, with such additional symptoms as loss of balance, severe headaches, cognitive disruption, and brain swelling,” AFSA said.
CBS had reported many of those diagnoses on the basis of medical records it obtained, but the State Department would not confirm the information. The State Department at first would say only that the Americans suffered non-life-threatening “symptoms.” Secretary of State Rex Tillerson later confirmed that hearing damage was among the effects.
AFSA’s statement is the first indication that, at least for some, the hearing loss is likely to be permanent.
Intense surveillance of U.S. diplomats in Cuba is routine, and low-level harassment such as the vandalizing of homes and cars used to be common. But reports of diplomats being physically harmed were rare.
U.S. officials who worked in Havana said the petty harassment had slacked off in recent years, even before President Barack Obama announced in 2014 that he would reestablish full diplomatic ties with Cuba after decades of estrangement between the two countries.
