Donnah Vuma’s Post

Yves Sakila was 35 years old. He was an IT professional. He had called Ireland home since he was a teenager. He was a member of a community, a son, a colleague, a person whose life had value and meaning. He is dead. Video footage shows him held face down on Henry Street by at least five people for almost five minutes. One person placed a knee on his head or neck. He was heard shouting in distress. By the end of the footage, he was motionless. He never walked away from that street. We witnessed a Black man restrained with a level of force that was not applied to subdue a threat. It was applied to a human being already on the ground, surrounded, going nowhere. What happened must be investigated fully, independently, and transparently. Every piece of evidence must be preserved. Every person involved must be accountable. I work every day with migrant victims of crime. I sit with people who have experienced violence, exploitation and abuse, and who are then asked to trust systems that have often failed them. The death of Yves Sakila is not an isolated incident. It sits within a pattern of Black people being seen as more threatening, more suspicious, more deserving of force, present in policing, in security, in housing, and in our public political discourse. Which brings me to Bertie Ahern. The former Taoiseach was recorded saying “the ones I worry about are the Africans” and that Ireland cannot take in people from “the Congo and all these places.” He later stood over those views, adding only that he was wrong to single out a group. That is not accountability. That is not an apology. These comments matter because a Congolese man is dead. Words spoken by people with public platforms do not disappear. They land. They shape how communities are perceived and what level of force feels acceptable against a Black body on a Dublin street. He was not making a policy argument. He was telling people that those lives matter less. I refuse to accept that framing. And I refuse to be silent about the connection between that rhetoric and what happened to Yves Sakila. Ireland likes to believe it is different. That the racism that produced George Floyd’s death is an American problem. What happened on Henry Street demands that we stop hiding behind that comfort. Anti-Black racism runs through assumptions, institutions, and the mouths of respected elder statesmen who face no real consequence for what they say. Yves Sakila deserved to grow old in the country he called home. He deserved none of what happened to him on that street. To the Congolese community and to every Black and African person in Ireland right now, I see you. I stand with you in grief and in fury. Your lives are not a problem to be managed. They matter, completely and without qualification. Justice must follow Yves Sakila. And this country must finally be honest about why it is needed.