WASHINGTON: A US government employee in China suffered brain trauma linked to “abnormal sounds” that resembled the still-unexplained injuries that befell US and Canadian diplomats in Cuba last year, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said Wednesday.
US and Chinese authorities are investigating the unnamed employee, who was assigned to the southern city of Guangzhou, was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI).
The US embassy in Beijing issued a health alert Wednesday over the incident while saying it did not know what caused the symptoms or of any similar situations in the country.
Last year 24 US diplomats and their family members in Cuba fell victim to a mysterious attack that left them with injuries resembling brain trauma.
Ten Canadian diplomats and their relatives also suffered a strange illness. Both countries scaled back their diplomatic presence on the Caribbean island due to the problem, which continues to baffle investigators and has strained US diplomatic relations with Havana.
“The medical indications are very similar and entirely consistent with the medical indications that have taken place to Americans working in Cuba,” Pompeo said in Washington. “We are working to figure out what took place both in Havana and now in China as well,” he added.
Relevant Piece: China minister says US staffer injury ‘individual case,’ not to be ‘politicized’. Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Y i said Wednesday the US should avoid politicizing the case of a US employee who suffered brain trauma similar to the mysterious injuries experienced by US diplomats in Cuba.”We don’t want to see that this individual case would be magnified, complicated or even politicized,” said Wang, in Washington for talks with US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Early Wednesday the US embassy in Beijing issued a warning after reporting that an employee in the southern city of Guangzhou was diagnosed with mild traumatic brain injury (MTBI) apparently linked to “abnormal sounds.” “China has been investigating this matter in a very responsible manner,” Wang said in a press conference with Pompeo. “We haven’t found that any organization or individual has carried out such a sonic influence.”
