Locals say hundreds of thousands of rands of damage was caused after the house of a chief, community library and a bakery were burnt down at Ha-Tshikonelo village outside Thohoyadou in Limpopo.
Locals were angry after chief, Nelson Mmbi, was arrested for alleged kidnapping of a local man who later escaped. Residents suspect that the accused are also behind the disappearance of another local man.
Mmbi and his co-accused are in custody.
Police have not made any arrests in connection with the alleged arson incident.
Mmbi royal council spokesperson Joseph Mmbi, “The damage thereof is a hell lot of money, the library is torched, the bakery is torched, and some of the items were stolen. We saw some of the TVs are missing. The library had a lot of books, we are talking original books, the Venda books, I mean Ngoma Ya Vhatei, I mean those are some of the books I can mention for now. The bakery, you can see the machines, not ordinary machines, very expensive machines, the community will come here and bake their lovely scones and whatever.”
