Gift of the Givers founder Dr Imtiaz Sooliman has thanked the community for its support following the arrest of 10 suspects in connection with a burglary at the aid organisation’s offices over the weekend.
Also read: Gift of the Givers: Humanitarian organisation’s offices burgled
A television set, laptop, food and clothing parcels were among the items that were stolen.
“We found some of the clothes we had prepared to distribute for flat fires in the Western Cape were missing, and for the medical room we found that some of the PPEs (personal protective equipment) were also missing,” he explained yesterday, saying that staff arrived at the office on Monday to find the front door open.
“In this kind of situation, you are dependent on community support.”
“Fortunately we have a very good relationship with communities in this country and after a short while we started getting messages after the media announcement that things were missing.”
“People started sending messages … and they started identifying who was involved, where they were.”
“Within the short space of time the police arrested 10 people,” he said.
According to Sooliman, they had received overwhelming support from the neighbours and from around the country.
“They brought footage to show that seven people had entered the offices and from the information that we got, everything was 100% correct,” he added.
Subsequently, Gift of the Givers took to its social media platforms, saying: “We are in awe of the support, messages of goodwill and prayers we received after our office in Cape Town was burgled.”
Meanwhile, Mayco Member for Safety, JP Smith also took to his Facebook page.
“Following up on information on Monday, Metro Police specialised teams affected three arrests and recovered some of the stolen property,” he said.
“In a joint operation with several other role players, additional information was gained of the stolen property being stored at four different warehouses in Hanover Park.“
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Picture: Cape{town}Etc Library