Cape Town - Five suspects have been arrested in connection with the vandalism of the Evangelical Bible Church in Bonteheuwel on Sunday morning.
Churchgoers said the facility was stripped bare and flooded when they arrived for the morning service.
Yulene Geland of the church said this was a second incident of burglary at the church.
“They vandalised everything and broke everything they could. We have a soup kitchen and we have a very big gas stove that we use for the soup kitchen. The stove is now gone with all our pots and other kitchen items. All our cleaning chemicals are also gone. They also took our musical instruments and our holy communion set. Our fridge was turned on the side and all the copper was taken out. They damaged our ceiling, I don't know what they were looking for in the ceiling.
“A month ago they stole our electricity cables. We couldn’t replace it so we did not have an alarm,” she said.
Geland said they have closed the church.
Police spokesperson Captain Frederick van Wyk said five suspects had been arrested for vandalism and theft.
“A great amount of items were stolen and damage was done to the building. The total amount of stolen items cannot be determined as yet.
“Bishop Lavis SAPS members worked tirelessly to trace the possible suspects and retrieve the property of the church. With great effort and hard work they managed to arrest five suspects aged between 23 and 47 for possession of stolen property as they were found in possession of items that belonged to the church. The suspects will appear in the Bishop Lavis Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday on the above mentioned charges,” he said.
Cape Times