Police say fire in South African Parliament was criminal

After fire destroyed the National Assembly of South Africa, located in Cape Town, police charged a 49-year-old man with arson and other crimes, including robbery, and a hearing is scheduled for Tuesday (4).

In a statement, elite police, called Hawks, detailed that the suspect must have entered Parliament through one of the office windows. The corporation’s spokesman, Nomthandazo Mbambo, told eNCA, it is possible that there will be more accusations, as there has been a breach in security.

The spokeswoman for the Assembly, where the deputies work, Nosiviwe Mapisa-Nqakula said that the crime, if confirmed, would represent an attack on the country’s democracy.

The flames reached the Parliament building this Sunday morning (2), in the oldest of the three wings of the building. Despite having been kept under control this Monday morning (3), the fire regained strength around 17:00 local time (12:00 in Brasília).

A spokesman for Cape Town’s fire service said the vault under the National Assembly, which collapsed on Sunday, was on fire. Parliament said the firefighters were reinforced with staff and equipment to deal with the new outbreak.

A reporter from the Reuters news agency who is at the scene said that wind speed, a key factor in the city’s fire season, had increased significantly and could hamper attempts to contain the flames.

An update released by the local government at around 10 pm (5 pm GMT) detailed that the fourth and fifth floors of the new wing above the Assembly were completely destroyed, as wind-fed flames threatened the historic Tuynhuys room, the president’s office Cyril Ramaphosa in Cape Town.

This Sunday’s fire started around 5:00 am, in the wing built in 1884, which also had part of its collapse, and then spread to more recent parts, dating back to 1920 and 1980.

There was no record of victims and the extent of the damage to items stored in the historic Victorian building is not yet known, but the place houses a museum with works of art and heritage objects, as well as a valuable library. Among the items stored is a rug whose embroidery tells the story of Eastern Cape on the ground floor of the old wing, where parliamentarians used to legislate.

Initial information also pointed out that at least the original document of the first national anthem in Afrikaans, “Die Stem Suid-Afrika” (the voice of South Africa), sung during the apartheid period, has already been seriously damaged.

Parliament played a crucial role in South Africa’s transition from white minority rule as the place where transformative legislation was passed, helping to reverse repressive apartheid-era policies.

This is the second fire in less than a year at the South African Parliament seat. In March 2021, fire broke out in the Old Assembly and there were no injuries, but this Sunday’s incident was more serious.​