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Arson blamed as fire breaks out at church where Tutu is buried
The dean at St. George's Cathedral said someone was seen running away from the cathedral after the fire started.
St George’s Cathedral is seen in the wake of Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s death in Cape Town on 26 December 2021. Photo: GIANLUIGI GUERCIA / AFP
A fire started by an arsonist broke out overnight at the cathedral where Archbishop Desmond Tutu is buried, a church leader announced on Sunday.
The fire was detected in the basement of a section of St. George’s Cathedral in Cape Town at around 2am.
“The fire was an act of arson,” father Michael Weeder, dean at the cathedral, said in an note to his parish.
“It appears that a lit piece of cotton/gauze was thrown through the small, barred window near the steps leading up to the cathedral’s (main)… entrance,” he said.
“Someone was spotted running away from the cathedral.”
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Firefighters quickly put out the fire, and other than “traces of smoke… there was no discernable damage done,” he added.
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Nobel Peace Prize winner Tutu died in late December aged 90 after a life spent fighting injustice.
The cathedral where his ashes were interred on January 2 is just blocks way from Parliament, which was set ablaze on the same day he was buried.
Zandile Mafe, the man suspected to be the arsonist who started the fire that gutted Parliament, is in custody awaiting trial after his application for bail was denied on Friday.
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