Luca Attanasio Luca Attanasio (23 May 1977 – 22 February 2021) was an Italian diplomat who served as the ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo from 2017 until his murder there in 2021. Early life Attanasio was born on 23 May 1977 in Saronno, ...

, the Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, was killed on 22 February 2021 along with two other people when a

World Food Programme The World Food Programme; it, Programma alimentare mondiale; es, Programa Mundial de Alimentos; ar, برنامج الأغذية العالمي, translit=barnamaj al'aghdhiat alealami; russian: Всемирная продовольствен� ...

(WFP) delegation travelling on a field visit was attacked by armed individuals. The two-vehicle convoy with seven people was travelling in the Congolese province of

North Kivu North Kivu (french: link=no, Nord-Kivu) is a province bordering Lake Kivu in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. Its capital is Goma. North Kivu borders the provinces of Ituri to the north, Tshopo to the northwest, Maniema to the s ...

, from the province's capital of

Goma Goma is the capital of North Kivu province in the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo. It is located on the northern shore of Lake Kivu, next to the Rwandan city of Gisenyi. The lake and the two cities are in the Albertine Rift, the weste ...

to a WFP school feeding programme in

Rutshuru Rutshuru is a town located in the North Kivu province of the eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo, and is headquarters of an administrative district, the Rutshuru Territory. The town lies in the western branch of the Albertine Rift between Lake ...

, a town 70 kilometres north of Goma, on a route that would have taken the vehicles through

Virunga National Park , iucn_category = II , iucn_ref = , location = Democratic Republic of the Congo , map = Democratic Republic of the Congo , relief = 1 , coordinates = , area = , established = , nearest_city = Goma , photo =Virunga National Park-107997 ...

. The attack occurred at 10:15 a.m. local time near the townships of Kibumba and Kanyamahoro. The WFP and North Kivu governor Carly Nzanzu said the convoy did not have a security escort at the time of the attack.

Attack

The convoy carrying Attanasio was travelling on a stretch of National Route 2 in the

when it was stopped by armed gunmen. The attackers killed one person at the scene, identified as Congolese

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

driver Mustapha Milambo. The other members of the delegation were led into the bush by the armed assailants where an exchange of gunfire ensued. In the exchange of gunfire, Attanasio and his bodyguard, 30-year-old

carabiniere The Carabinieri (, also , ; formally ''Arma dei Carabinieri'', "Arm of Carabineers"; previously ''Corpo dei Carabinieri Reali'', "Royal Carabineers Corps") are the national gendarmerie of Italy who primarily carry out domestic and foreign polic ...

Vittorio Iacovacci, were mortally wounded. Others travelling in the convoy were also injured. Attanasio was shot in the abdomen and succumbed to his injuries before arriving at a hospital in Goma. According to prosecutor Alberto Pioletti, autopsies showed that Attanasio and Iacovacci were killed in a

shootout A shootout, also called a firefight or gunfight, is a fight between armed combatants using firearms. The term can be used to describe any such fight, though it is typically used to describe those that do not involve military forces or only invo ...

rather than by

execution-style murder An execution-style murder, also known as execution-style killing, a "gang style", or "kill shot" is an act of criminal murder where the perpetrator kills at close range a conscious victim who is under the complete physical control of the assaila ...

International responses

The bodies of Attanasio and Iacovacci were

repatriated Repatriation is the process of returning a thing or a person to its country of origin or citizenship. The term may refer to non-human entities, such as converting a foreign currency into the currency of one's own country, as well as to the pro ...

to Italy via

military aircraft A military aircraft is any fixed-wing or rotary-wing aircraft that is operated by a legal or insurrectionary armed service of any type. Military aircraft can be either combat or non-combat: * Combat aircraft are designed to destroy enemy equipm ...

, and were met by Prime Minister

Mario Draghi Mario Draghi (; born 3 September 1947) is an Italian economist, academic, banker and civil servant who served as prime minister of Italy from February 2021 to October 2022. Prior to his appointment as prime minister, he served as President of ...

in a small ceremony on the tarmac. Draghi asked the United Nations and the World Food Programme to open an investigation into the attack.

President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo The president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (french: link=no, Président de la République démocratique du Congo, sw, Rais wa Jamhuri ya Kidemokrasia ya Kongo, ln, Mokonzi wa Republíki ya Kongó Demokratíki), is the head of state ...

Félix Tshisekedi Félix Antoine Tshisekedi Tshilombo (; born 13 June 1963) is a Congolese politician who has been the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo since 24 January 2019. He is the leader of the Union for Democracy and Social Progress (UDPS) ...

sent a letter to Attanasio's widow Zakia Seddiki, saying his government had started an investigation in Goma "so that light is shed on these heinous crimes as soon as possible."

Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs The Italian Minister of Foreign Affairs is the head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Italy. The office was one of the positions which Italy inherited from the Kingdom of Sardinia where it was the most ancient ministry of the government: thi ...

Luigi Di Maio Luigi Di Maio (; born 6 July 1986) is an Italian former stadium beverage vendor and politician. He served as Minister of Foreign Affairs from 2019 to 2022, as Deputy Prime Minister of Italy and Minister of Economic Development, Labour and Soci ...

said "the circumstances of this brutal attack are still unclear and no effort will be spared to shed light on what happened." A group of Italian investigators went to Goma in coordination with a prosecutorial investigation that started in Rome. Several Italian newspapers ran front-page tributes to those who were killed;

Turin Turin ( , Piedmontese language, Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital ...

-based ''

La Stampa ''La Stampa'' (meaning ''The Press'' in English) is an Italian daily newspaper published in Turin, Italy. It is distributed in Italy and other European nations. It is one of the oldest newspapers in Italy. History and profile The paper was fou ...

'' ran the headline "Luca and Vittorio. The best of Italy."

Pope Francis Pope Francis ( la, Franciscus; it, Francesco; es, link=, Francisco; born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, 17 December 1936) is the head of the Catholic Church. He has been the bishop of Rome and sovereign of the Vatican City State since 13 March 2013. ...

expressed his sorrow "for the disappearance of these servants of peace and law." Congolese authorities accused the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda of the killing; they denied responsibility and condemned the attack.

Arrests

On 19 January 2022, police in the DRC announced they had arrested six members of a highway robbers' gang suspected of killing Attanasio.

Murder of Mwilanya Asani William

On 5 March 2021, Mwilanya Asani William, the attorney who was investigating the deaths of the three men, was murdered by unknown gunmen during an

ambush An ambush is a long-established military tactics, military tactic in which a combatant uses an advantage of concealment or the element of surprise to attack unsuspecting enemy combatants from concealed positions, such as among dense underbru ...

References

{{Ambassadors of Italy 2020s in the United Nations 2021 mass shootings in Africa 2021 murders in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Ambushes in Africa Attacks on diplomatic missions Deaths by firearm in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Deaths by person in Africa Democratic Republic of the Congo–Italy relations Diplomatic incidents February 2021 crimes in Africa Foreign relations of Italy Italy and the United Nations Kidnapping in the 2020s Kidnapping in Africa North Kivu People murdered in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Terrorist incidents in Africa in 2021 Terrorist incidents in the Democratic Republic of the Congo Terrorist incidents involving vehicular attacks Unsolved murders in Africa