{"id":501644,"date":"2026-05-25T10:30:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:30:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/501644\/"},"modified":"2026-05-25T10:30:19","modified_gmt":"2026-05-25T10:30:19","slug":"death-of-yves-sakila-triggers-shock-and-anger-in-democratic-republic-of-congo-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/501644\/","title":{"rendered":"Death of Yves Sakila triggers \u2018shock and anger\u2019 in Democratic Republic of Congo \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The death of Yves Sakila<\/a> in Dublin on May 15th has caused outrage in his home country of the Democratic Republic of Congo<\/a> (DRC), a poor central African state torn by conflict and a rapidly spreading Ebola<\/a> outbreak.<\/p>\n

Footage of his death has circulated widely on social media, triggering an outpouring of anger and disbelief. Congolese news organisations, which seldom look beyond their own borders, also covered the story.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m truly shocked,\u201d said Promesse Kitakya, an entrepreneur in the Congolese capital Kinshasa, who saw the video of security guards restraining Sakila on Dublin\u2019s Henry Street<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo one should die like that,\u201d he added, explaining that it seemed to him as if some lives had less value than others. <\/p>\n

Following an outcry, Congo\u2019s ministry of foreign affairs said it was following \u201cwith deep emotion and grave concern\u201d information surrounding Sakila\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

It added that it was in contact with Irish authorities to establish the circumstances of his death and to ensure a transparent investigation.<\/p>\n

For many in the DRC, Sakila\u2019s death has fed a perception that Congolese people fleeing hardship at home often face prejudice and discrimination abroad.<\/p>\n

The DRC is a vast and mineral-rich country with a population of about 120 million people and a large diaspora spread across Africa, North America and Europe. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Special rapporteur on racism calls for \u2018urgent, independent\u2019 investigation into Yves Sakila\u2019s deathOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

However, the country is one of the five poorest in the world, according to the World Bank, with more than 80 per cent of the population surviving $3 (\u20ac2.60) a day or less. <\/p>\n

Persistent conflict tied to dozens of armed groups has also ravaged eastern DRC for decades. <\/p>\n

\"KinshasaKinshasa residents continue to pack markets, bars and public transportation, despite growing international concern about the spread of the Ebola virus. Photograph: Justin Makangara\/The New York Times <\/p>\n

In late 2021, rebels from the Rwanda-backed M23 group launched an insurgency and have since captured swathes of territory, including eastern DRC\u2019s two largest cities, Goma and Bukavu.<\/p>\n

The DRC is also currently in the grip of an Ebola outbreak, which health responders are struggling to control as cases proliferate across the conflict zones in the east of the country.<\/p>\n

Jacques Issongo, a member of the Congolese pro-democracy activist group LUCHA, described living conditions in the DRC as unbearable.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are millions of Congolese people, like Yves, who left to seek a more peaceful life,\u201d he said. \u201cWe flee Congo because Congolese people can\u2019t live with dignity in their country.\u201d<\/p>\n

Issongo added that Sakila\u2019s death was \u201ccompletely unacceptable\u201d regardless of whether he had been accused of committing a crime. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Death of Yves Sakila seems to involve \u2018disproportionate use of violence\u2019, says solicitorOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Yves Sakila had lived in Ireland since 2004 and had been homeless for several years. He had allegedly been involved in a shoplifting incident at Arnotts in Dublin and died after being restrained by security guards outside the shop. <\/p>\n

Arnotts said it was deeply saddened by the death and the company was \u201cactively co-operating\u201d with the Garda investigation.<\/p>\n

Little is known about Ireland in the DRC, where the official language is French.<\/p>\n

Reagan Miviri, a Kinshasa-based conflict analyst who lived in Dublin for a year, said Congolese migrants in Ireland can feel isolated because of cultural and language differences.<\/p>\n

He also suggested that Sakila would have had a smaller support network in Dublin than he would have had in European cities with larger Congolese populations, such as Brussels or Paris. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0Garda\u00ed investigate role of security guards\u2019 restraint in case of man who died on Dublin\u2019s Henry StreetOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Miviri said that he wasn\u2019t surprised by Sakila\u2019s death, describing how he had often felt unsafe as a black African man in Dublin.<\/p>\n

\u201cThis is triggering lots of anger because many people think this happened because he was Congolese, and African,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The death of Yves Sakila in Dublin on May 15th has caused outrage in his home country of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":491176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[956,9,10,36812,52,18,13,14,5650,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,7,8],"class_list":["post-501644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-an-garda-siochana","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-democratic-republic-of-congo","tag-dublin","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-fiosru","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116634755809165628","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=501644"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/501644\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/491176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=501644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=501644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=501644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}