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Attack on UN convoy leaves Italian Ambassador to DRC and two others dead.


 Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo and two other people have been killed in an attack on a United Nations convoy in the restive east of the central African country.

The convoy from the World Food Programme was attacked at about 10.15am local time (0815 GMT) during an attempted kidnapping near the town of Kanyamahoro, about 10 miles north of the regional capital, Goma, a spokesperson for Virunga national park said.

Ambassador Luca Attanasio and a male Italian military police officer travelling with him were killed, the Italian foreign ministry said in a statement. A driver also died in the attack, diplomatic sources and local officials said.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, but the road on which the convoy was travelling is a frequent site of attacks by bandits and armed militia.

“It is with deep sorrow that the foreign ministry confirms the death today in Goma of the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, and of a policeman from the carabinieri,” the Italian foreign ministry statement said. “The ambassador and the soldier were travelling in a car in a convoy of Monusco, the United Nations organisation stabilisation mission in the Democratic Republic of Congo.”

Attanasio died of his wounds in the UN hospital in Goma. The 43-year-old, who was married with three children, had been Italy’s head of mission in Kinshasa since 2017 and was made ambassador in 2019.


Source: the guardian.com






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