[ad_1]
The Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo was killed in the violence that the President of the DRC described as a “terrorist attack”, which he attributed to a Rwandan Hutu rebel group.
Luca Attanasio died of his injuries after a World Food Program (WFP) convoy was hit by gunfire near Goma while on his way to the field to visit a school feeding program, according to a high-level diplomatic source in Kinshasa and the WFP.
The Italian government has confirmed Attanasio’s death and said an Italian policeman, Vittorio Iacovacci, and a driver he did not identify, were also dead.
UN peacekeepers and Congolese troops deployed to the rural area of Kibumba where the attack took place, walking on a dirt road between overgrown brush as they prepared to retrieve the bodies and find the attackers. A white WFP vehicle had at least one broken window, and residents watched the soldiers push their way through the brush.
A trader in the area said he saw a body on the ground.
The assailants “were running with the people who were in the cars, in the buses,” Julien Amani Kiza told AFP.
Italian President Sergio Mattarella has confirmed what he called a “cowardly attack”.
Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio expressed his “great consternation and sorrow”, breaking off a meeting in Brussels with his European counterparts to return to Rome.
In a statement, the President of the DRC Félix Tshisekedi declared that he “very strongly condemns this terrorist attack” and promised an investigation.
Previously, the Interior Ministry blamed the killings on “members of the Democratic Liberation Forces of Rwanda (FDLR),” a Rwandan Hutu rebel group that has raged in the region for more than a quarter of a century.
Four people were kidnapped, one of whom was later found, the ministry said.
EU chief Ursula von der Leyen expressed “shock” at the attack, in a region “where the population is suffering unacceptable violence”.
Persistent problems
Attanasio, 43, represented Italy in Kinshasa since 2017, first as head of mission, then as ambassador from October 2019.
The envoy suffered “gunshot wounds in the abdomen” and was taken to a hospital in Goma in critical condition, a diplomat in Kinshasa said.
A vast country the size of continental Western Europe, the DRC is grappling with many conflicts, especially in its remote and mineral-rich region.
Dozens of militias roam the four eastern provinces, many of which are a legacy of the wars of the 1990s that ravaged countries of central and southern Africa and claimed millions of lives.
According to an American observer, the Kivu Security Tracker (KST), 122 armed groups were active in the provinces of North and South Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika last year.
More than 2,000 civilians have been killed, according to UN figures released last week.
Monday’s attack occurred north of the North Kivu capital, Goma, in Nyiaragongo territory – one of the most dangerous regions in the country.
The FDLR is one of the many armed groups operating there.
Some of the group’s founders were involved in the Rwandan genocide of 1994 in which the majority Hutu massacred 800,000 people, mainly Tutsis but also moderate Hutus.
The group is opposed to the current Rwandan government, but has not launched any large-scale offensive in Rwanda since 2001.
In April last year, the FDLR were accused of killing 12 rangers in Virunga National Park, a UNESCO-listed wildlife sanctuary that is home to critically endangered mountain gorillas.
“ Hateful ” attack: UN
Another group in the region north of Goma is a Congolese Tutsi group also known as the Congolese Revolutionary Army, which captured Goma in 2012-2013.
WFP said Attanasio had been on a fact-finding mission with him.
“The delegation was traveling from Goma to visit a WFP school feeding program in Rutshuru when the incident took place,” he said in a statement.
“The attack … occurred on a road that had previously been allowed to travel without a security escort.”
But the DRC’s interior ministry said security services and provincial authorities had not been warned in advance and were unable to provide security for this reason.
United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres issued a statement urging the DRC to promptly investigate “heinous targeting” of a UN mission.
A UN Security Council statement condemned the attack and “underscored the need to bring the perpetrators to justice.”
‘A rare courage’
Attanasio joined the Italian diplomatic service in 2003 and had previously served in Switzerland, Morocco and Nigeria.
He was hailed as “a man of extraordinary courage, humanity and professionalism” by Emanuela Del Re, Italy’s deputy foreign minister from 2018 last month.
“I remember her contagious smile, her class, her great knowledge of African affairs,” she said.
Attanasio is the second European Ambassador to be killed while serving in the DRC.
In January 1993, the French Ambassador Philippe Bernard was killed during riots in Kinshasa started by troops opposed to dictator Mobutu Sese Seke.
(with son)
Source link
