The circumstances surrounding the death of the Newry care home worker Anu Okusanya are deeply alarming, and impossible to separate from the wider upsurge in racist aggression over recent months.
As has been well documented, Ms Okusanya, who was aged 46 and originally from Nigeria, had suffered the traumatic experience of being targeted by a group of young thugs on at least two occasions.
When she saw the same perpetrators assaulting another victim, she was understandably distraught and ran from the scene to a neighbour’s house, where she suffered an asthma attack as well as multiple cardiac seizures, and, despite being taken to hospital, tragically died a matter of days later.
The family picture of Ms Okusanya and her only son, Olaitan, carried on the front page of this newspaper yesterday, and showing the pair smiling and full of optimism, was poignant in every way.
She was a respected health worker, providing an important community service since she came to live in the village of Damolly, outside Newry, 15 months ago, but was viciously intimidated by individuals who appear to have been motivated purely by racism and hatred.
A gang initially followed her to her house, banging on her door and terrifying her in what should have been her place of safety, before a boy later disgracefully threw liquid over her while she was walking along a street in broad daylight.
Relatives explained how devastated she was by the incidents, which were both reported to police, and it was plain that she found it particularly distressing to witness another act nearby, with tragic consequences.
There will be enormous sympathy for Olaitan, who had had been due to travel from Nigeria to join his mother for a reunion in Newry but will instead have to attend her funeral.
Another example of unacceptable attitudes was provided this week when it emerged that the bigoted slogan “Stop the boats” had been added to a prominent mural in a loyalist district of north Belfast.
Asylum seekers represent roughly one tenth of one per cent of the population in Northern Ireland, and cannot in any rational way by seen as a threat to loyalist residents, but have still been subjected to a prolonged campaign of both implied and actual violence.
While it was encouraging to hear the justice minister and Alliance leader Naomi Long speak out in support of the Okusanya family yesterday, with a senior police officer appealing for help in bringing racist offenders before the courts, others also need to make their position clear.
Some unionist politicians have directly condemned racism, but those who have so far offered equivocal responses or remained silent should reflect closely on the dreadful case of Anu Okusanya.
