By Pascal Ibe

Yaya Libram, a self acclaimed South African patriot, has posted a video of fire incident and claimed that locals in the Democratic Republic of the Congo razed a sex workers’house owned by aNigerian.

In the 22 seconds video posted on his X account, Yaya Libram claimed that Congolese🇨🇩 citizens have burned down a Nigerian🇳🇬 owned brothel in the suburbs of Kinshasa.

“According to Congolese🇨🇩 locals, the brothel had been linked to drugs & human trafficking.

Yaya Libram alleged South African🇿🇦, Libyan🇱🇾 & Vietnamese🇻🇳 prostitutes were seen in the streets running for their lives.

The post generated over 915k views and more than 2k reposts as at Thursday afternoon.

This video also posted by another X user, African Hub, made the same claim.

South Africans, Nigerians Relationship

One may ask, what is the concern for a South African citizen to share negative report about Nigerian in DR Congo over the fire incident?

But looking back, there has been ugly past between the two countries.

In 2015 and 2017in South Africa, there occurred a series of attacks on nationals of foreign countries. In that attack, nationals of Zimbabwe and Nigeria bore the brunt of the violence. That particular incident was attributed to the inciting words of the Zulu king who called on all foreigners to leave the country. Prior to that time there had been reported attacks in 1998, 2000, 2008, 2009 and 2013. In 2013, the governments of Nigeria and South Africa signed a Memorandum of Understanding to reinforce diplomatic ties with the hope of preventing further attacks. The events of 2016 and 2017 have proven that those efforts were in vain. The recurrence of these attacks without a doubt raises the question as to why they are common to South Africa. Indeed, at a loss to understand why Nigerians have been targeted, many reasons have been adduced as being responsible, the most amusing of which is the claim that South Africans involved in the attack were acting on ridiculous claim that foreigners, including Nigerians, were taking away their jobs and women!

Verification

Verifying claim by Yaya Libram, a simple Google image reverse on the key frames from the video, indicated that the video first appeared on Facebook on July 19, 2024.

Congo News on Facebook posted this same video and wrote in French, “🔴 Une maison qui héberge des prostituées chinoises à Kinshasa a été endommagée par un incendie🔥🔥🔥🔥

FactWatch translated what Congo News wrote in French to English language using Google translator.

The translation in English language reads, “A house housing Chinese prostitutes in Kinshasa was damaged by fire🔥🔥🔥🔥

Also, a Congolese X user posted the same video on July 20, 2024 (two weeks ago) and wrote, “#Kinshasa: A house allegedly housing Chinese prostitutes in Kinshasa (#DRC) has been damaged by fire.

An Instagram account posted the same video as a reel on Facebook on July 20 and captioned it, “A house housing Chinese prostitutes in Kinshasa was damaged by fire( translated from French ).

A female Congolese who commented on Yaya Libram’s post on X, labelled it false.

No credible news organization in DR Congo confirmed that what the South African X user claimed is true, after thorough search by FactWatch.

Verdict

Caim by Yaya Libram that Congolese citizens burnt down sex workers’ house owned by a Nigerian is Misleading, after findings.