The Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Luca Attanasio and two other people have been killed on Monday during in an attack on a United Nations convoy.
According to a statement issued by the Italian Foreign Ministry, the 43-year-old ambassador, a carabinieri police officer who was providing security for him and a third person, were killed in Goma, during an attempted kidnap.
“The ambassador and the soldier were traveling in a car in a convoy of MONUSCO, the United Nations Organisation Stabilisation Mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo,” the statement reads.
Reuters quoted a source from the Virunga National Park saying that the convoy was attacked by unidentified assailants near the town of Kanyamahoro, a few miles north of the regional capital Goma, at around 10.15 am local time.
Commenting on the news, the Italian Foreign Minister, Luigi di Maio, who was in Brussels for a meeting with his European counterparts (FAC), said that “the circumstances of this brutal attack are not yet known and no effort will be spared to shed light on what happened.”