Italy’s murdered DRC ambassador given state funeral
ITALY yesterday held a state funeral for its ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo and his bodyguard killed in an ambush that Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Pope Francis’s vicar for Rome diocese, said should prompt everyone to “hear the cry” of a people devastated by violence.
Luca Attanasio, 43, and Vittorio Iacovacci, 30, were shot dead after being kidnapped while travelling in a UN World Food Programme convoy to visit a school feeding project on Monday. WFP driver Mustapha Milambo was also killed.
The funeral, attended by Prime Minister Mario Draghi, was held in the Basilica of St Mary of the Angels and Martyrs, a church used for religious services for national figures.
Attanasio left a wife and three children and Iacovacci was engaged.
Preliminary autopsy results showed that both were hit twice by crossfire in an apparent kidnapping attempt and not executed. Congo’s interior ministry has blamed a Rwandan ethnic Hutu rebel militia, the FDLR, for the attack.
Italian police have flown into Congo to liaise with police there. When they return home, Italian prosecutors are expected to open a full investigation.