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OTTAWA — Children were among those affected by a series of mysterious and still-unexplained attacks on the health of Canadian and American diplomats in Cuba last year, documents from the Canadian government have revealed.

Correspondence from diplomats in Havana, apparently detailed but heavily redacted when obtained by the National Post under access-to-information law, show officials at Global Affairs Canada learned as early as April that Canadian embassy staffers and their families in Cuba were reporting mysterious health problems. In May, they scrambled to determine whether the severe symptoms they were reporting — including, the documents say, the loss of memory, hearing and even consciousness — could be psychosomatic. It appears to have taken weeks before Canadian doctors officially examined those affected.

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August saw the first media reports about the alleged attacks. The Associated Press reported that American diplomats in Havana had heard loud, jarring noises that seemed to be audible only in specific rooms or even in very specific parts of rooms, mostly in their homes and at night. They then began suffering hearing loss and other physical symptoms. After those reports, the U.S. confirmed to media that 24 of its own had been affected. In September, AP reported that about 10 Canadian families had been affected and that both countries had deployed criminal investigators.