- Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, 43, has been killed in an attack.
- According to a statement from the foreign Ministry ,the United Nations convoy he was travelling in was attacked near Goma, in the east of the country.
Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, 43, has been killed in an attack. According to a statement from the Foreign Ministry ,the United Nations convoy he was travelling in was attacked near Goma, in the east of the country. He died in the hospital yesterday.
The convoy reportedly belonged to the UN’s World Food Programme (WFP) and the attack in North Kivu province is believed to have been an attempted kidnapping. Apart from the Ambassador, an Italian military police officer travelling with the envoy and a Congolese driver were also killed.
Mr Attanasio was travelling in one of the two vehicles to visit a “schools programme” in the village of Rutshuru in eastern DR Congo on Monday morning.
A group of six attackers ambushed, the vehicles before taking all the passengers into the Virunga National Park when a patrol of Virunga National Park rangers intervened and managed to free four people. However, before escaping, the assailants shot the ambassador and his bodyguard. Several other passengers were reportedly injured.
Though it is yet certain who was behind the attack, the interior ministry has accused a Hutu rebel group known as the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR).
Even after the end of the Civil war in DR Congo, which lasted more than a decade, the country still faces conflict and instability. Dozens of militias and rebel groups continue to operate in eastern areas. The UN’s peacekeeping mission one of the biggest peacekeeping operations in the world has been in DR Congo since 1999. It has more than 17,000 personnel on the ground.
