Eurasia Press & News
Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo has been killed in an attack on a United Nations convoy near the eastern Congolese city of Goma.
The U.N. World Food Program says at least two other people were killed and several more injured in the attack Monday that killed Italian ambassador Luca Attanasio.
A United Nations spokesman tells VOA the other two fatalities were an Italian national and a Congolese WFP driver. The spokesman says the attack targeted two WFP vehicles traveling about 25 kilometers northeast of Goma.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
A WFP statement said the delegation was traveling from Goma to visit a WFP school feeding program in Rutshuru when the incident took place. It noted that the attack “occurred on a road that had previously been cleared for travel without security escorts.”
Reuters, citing the Virunga National Park, reports the convoy was attacked near the town of Kanyamahoro as part of a kidnap attempt.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio has issued a statement expressing his “great dismay and immense sorrow” over the deaths of his compatriots. “The circumstances of this brutal attack are not yet known and no effort will be spared to shed light on what happened,” Di Maio says.
Congo’s mineral-rich east has been a battleground for numerous armed groups for more than two decades, since militants involved in Rwanda’s 1994 genocide fled across the porous border. U.N. peacekeepers have attempted to restore peace in the region for more than a decade.
The most active group currently appears to be the Allied Democratic Forces, a violent Ugandan rebel group that seeks to establish Sharia law. The group appears to have ramped up its attacks in recent months, capturing villages, killing civilians, recruiting child soldiers and sparring with the Congolese army.
The infrastructure-poor area has also, in the past three years, seen an outbreak of Ebola, the largest in the nation’s history.
