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"We are stealing all the property of the white men,' said the black looters when they descended on the artists' workshops at the disfunctional Ramsdaal prison where Afrikaner artists have worked and lived for years, reported Volksblad newspaper in Bloenmfontein on March 10 2012.
They wrote that toymaker and ex-policeman Hendrik Trollip 57, now is homeless and without any means to make a living from his toys because all his tools also were looted when local blacks descended on the prison, being demolished. The Afrikaners living in the Setshabelo Arts and Crafts cente in the old prison on Dr Belchber Road were not offered any alternative accommodation by the government which is demolishing the old prison to make way for a new building for the Free State provincial parliament.
Mr Trollip lived in the old arts and crafts centre for twelve years. They were unceremoniously dumped onto the sidewalk with their meagre properties.
While the demolitions were going on, black residents from nearby Batho, Heidedal, Mangaung and other black townships in the old Bloemfontein town centre descended on the artists' properties in an organised mob and started looting them, shouting that they were 'going to take everything from the white men.' They looted as many building materials as they could - including the artists' supplies and properties which the AFrikaner artists used to make a living with. Trollip said he lost all his toy-making tools and supplies. "The blacks threw us with stones and chased us away while they looted our stuff. They said 'the white people have everything now we come and get our stuff. I have nothing left to make my toys with. They took everything'.
He now lives in his only remaining property: an old Nissan 1400 bakkie, parked in front of a friend's small workshop. The friend said Mr Trollip has no place to live and with most of his tools looted, he cannot make a living. I can't even offer him a place to stay. They even stole one of his dogs.'
- Volksblad http://www.volksblad.com/Suid-Afrika/Nuus/Man-bly-in-bakkie-na-tronk-se-sloping-20120310
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