KINSHASA, Congo (AP) – Italian ambassador to Congo, an Italian Carabinieri police officer and their Congolese driver were killed on Monday when gunmen attacked a UN convoy traveling to a school in eastern Congo. the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and residents said.
Luca Attanasio, who has served at the Italian embassy in the country since 2017, killed Carabinieri officer Vittorio Iacovacci and their manager Moustapha Milambo, officials said. Other members of the convoy were wounded and taken to a hospital, the World Food Program said.
Congo’s Interior Ministry said four others had been abducted in the convoy, but one person had since been found by the Congolese army.
The ambush occurred when the convoy of Goma, Congo’s eastern capital, traveled to visit a WFP school project in Rutshuru, the UN agency said.
The WFP said the attack took place on a road previously cleared for travel without security escorts, and he asked for more information from local officials about the attack. Eastern Congo is home to a multitude of rebel groups, all competing for control of the mineral-rich Central African nation, such as the size of Western Europe.
The attack, about 25 kilometers north of Goma, was right next to Virunga National Park. North Kivu Governor Carly Nzanzu Kasivita said the UN vehicles were hijacked by the attackers and taken into the bushes. The Congolese army and park rangers for the Virunga National Park came to help those who were attacked, he said.
“There was a fire. “The attackers shot at the bodyguard and the ambassador,” the governor said.
Attanasio was shot in the abdomen, according to a statement from the Interior Ministry. He was subsequently transported to the UN mission in Congo Hospital where he succumbed to his wounds, the ministry said.
Without naming sources, Italian state TV Monday night said the convoy was apparently the target of a kidnapping attempt aimed at obtaining ransom money.
Attanasio, a 43-year-old career diplomat, left behind a wife and three young children.
The attack took place in the same area where two Britons were abducted in 2018 by unknown armed men, said Mambo Kaway, head of a local civil society group.
“The situation is very tense,” he added.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.
The Congolese Ministry of Home Affairs blamed the Democratic Forces for the liberation of Rwanda, the Rwandan Hutu rebel group known as FDLR, for the attack.
The Interior Ministry said the provincial authorities of North Kivu were not aware of the presence of the Italian ambassador, who did not allow them to offer him security measures.
The President of the Congo, Felix Tshisekedi, expressed his sincere condolences to the families of the victims and, according to the President’s office, asked that the culprits be brought to court.
More than 2,000 civilians were killed in eastern Congo last year by violence by armed groups whose brutal attacks also displaced more than 5.2 million people in what the UN calls one of the world’s worst humanitarian crises.
Marie Tumba Nzenza, Congo’s Foreign Minister, sent her condolences and promised the Italian government that the Congolese government would do everything in its power to find those behind the killings.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella and Prime Minister Mario Draghi also expressed their condolences to the families of the victims. Flags at Italian government buildings were ordered to fly with half-staff on Monday and Tuesday.
“The circumstances of this brutal attack are still unclear and no effort will be spared to shed light on what happened,” Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio said.
Di Maio hurries back from a European Union ministerial meeting in Brussels to Rome to discuss the attack with Draghi.
The prosecutor’s office in Rome is investigating crimes abroad against Italians. A specialized Carabinieri unit was expected to arrive in Kinshasha on Tuesday to assist with the Italian investigation.
After diplomatic posts in Switzerland, Morocco and Nigeria, Attanasio was assigned to the embassy in Kinshasa in September 2017.
Last October, he was awarded the Nassiriya International Peace Prize during a ceremony held in a church in southern Italy. Attanasio is quoted as “contributing to the achievement of important humanitarian projects, and distinguishing himself for altruism, dedication and the spirit of service to people in difficult circumstances,” La Repubblica reported.
It quoted Attanasio as saying that “everything we take for granted in Italy is not in the Congo, where unfortunately there are so many problems to solve.”
Attanasio described the role of the ambassador ‘above all being close to the Italians, but also contributing to the achievement of peace’. About 1,000 Italians live in Congo.
Congo suffered through one of the world’s most brutal colonial rule before undergoing decades of corrupt dictatorship. Rugby civil wars later drew a number of neighboring countries. In January 2019, Congo experienced its first peaceful democratic transfer of power since independence in 1960 after the election of President Felix Tshisekedi.
The UN peacekeeping mission is working to establish more than 17,000 troops in the country and to hand over its security work to Congolese authorities.
“These tragic killings highlight the insecurity in eastern Congo,” in an area that has seen an increase in kidnappings, organized crime and militias, Ben Shepherd said. He was an advisory contributor to the Chatham House Africa program.
It took place on one of the highways from Goma, a well-traveled road that is generally considered safe, he said, adding that at this stage it would be difficult to know whether it was a random, opportunistic attack on a convoy was or a planned attack.
UN peace chief Jean-Pierre Lacroix said at a previously scheduled news conference on Monday that UN security officials in the country usually determine whether the roads are safe. He said he had no details on ‘the exact development of the incident’.
“The investigation will hopefully provide clarity on that,” Lacroix added.
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Nicole Winfield reports from Rome. Carley Petesch in Dakar, Senegal, Lorne Cook in Brussels, Frances D’Emilio in Rome, Edith M. Lederer in New York and Andrew Meldrum in Johannesburg, contributed to this report.