A fire broke out around 2 a.m. (local time) in the basement of a section of St. George's Cathedral in Cape Town, South Africa.
Cathedral where the ashes of Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize winner and hero of the anti-apartheid struggle who died on December 26 were buried.
"The fire is arson," said Father Michael Weeder, dean of the cathedral, in a note to his parish on Sunday.
According to him, it “appears that a lit piece of cotton/gauze was thrown through the small barred window near the steps leading to the” main entrance of the cathedral.
“Someone was seen running away from the cathedral,” he added.
The firefighters quickly extinguished the fire and apart from “traces of smoke (…) no sign of damage is visible”, according to the first findings.
This building is located not far from the Parliament which was burned down the very day of the burial, on January 2, of Desmond Tutu.
A man suspected of being the arsonist in the Houses of Parliament fire is in custody awaiting trial after his bail request was denied on Friday.
