Thieves broke into the Church of Christ in New Amsterdam and escaped with over $2 million in valuables from the place of worship.
The damaged door
Reports are the incident took place sometime early Friday morning. Speaking with Guyana Times, Minister of the church, Samuel Singh said at about 20:30h on Thursday evening, the building, which is located at Republic Road and St Magdalene Street, was secured. However, when a member of the church turned up at about 05:00h to turn off the lights at the facility, he discovered that the building was burglarised.
He said when he got there the entire building was ransacked. A window leading to the male washroom was ripped opened. The perpetrators used an old grill as a ladder to gain access to the window. They then removed the grill to that window.
He said when they went into the building and visited the upper flat, a steel door which secures a storeroom was prised open and items valuing almost $2.5 million were taken.
Among the articles listed as stolen were microwaves, blenders, silver wear, crystals and a number of other dining utensils along with kitchen utensils. Inflated mattresses, clothing, and shoes are just a fraction of the list of items removed from the church.
“The Church of Christ has a feeding programme for schools and a hot meal programme for pensioners. Our brothers in the US have made contributions to our kitchen. We had breakages in the past and they have emptied our kitchen so recently we received eight barrels that were all filled with wears and microwaves and all the different things that aid us in our feeding programme and more so when we have church fellowship within ourselves and when we host other member congregations we have the facility; that is what the upstairs is for,” Singh explained.
A next-door neighbour reportedly saw when the burglars were breaking into the building but was too terrified to report it to the Police.
The Police have reviewed the surveillance footage taken and are on the hunt for two suspects.
