Men spotted failing to pull statue of former slave trader out of Bristol Harbour after protesters threw it in

A group of men were spotted trying to pull the statue of former slave trader Edward Colston out of Bristol Harbour.

This all came about after Black Lives Matter protesters pulled the statue off its hinges on Sunday, rolled it towards the Harbour and threw it in the water.

The very next day, photos emerged of a group of people trying to hoist the heavy bronze statue out with a metal pole.

People had a lot of thoughts on the feeble attempt to retrieve the statue:

Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees confirmed authorities will retrieve the statue from Bristol Harbour but it will not be restored to where it was in the city centre:

I can't pretend, as the son of a Jamaican migrant myself, that the presence of that statue to a slave trader in the middle of the city was anything other than a personal affront to me and people like me.

We will get the statue back and it will highly likely end up in one of our museums.

In 1680, Colston became a member of the “Royal African Company”, which traded along the west coast of Africa in gold, silver, ivory and slaves.

During his 12 years with the company, it’s estimated he forcibly traded over 84,000 African men, women and children to the Carribean and North America. Around 19,000 of these died on the journey and never made it.