Italy presses UN for answers over attack that killed ambassador

ITALY HAS pressed the United Nations for answers about the attack on a UN food aid convoy in the Democratic Republic of Congo that left a young ambassador and his paramilitary police bodyguard dead.

Foreign minister Luigi Di Maio told politicians in Rome that Italy has asked both the UN and the UN

World Food Programme (WFP) to open an investigation into the security arrangements for the convoy, which was attacked two days earlier.

The minister also said Italy will spare no effort to determine the truth behind the killing of ambassador Luca Attanasio and military police officer Vittorio Iacovacci.

A WFP Congolese driver, Moustapha Milambo, was also killed in the attack.

“We have formally asked the WFP and the UN to open an inquest that clarifies what happened, the motivations for the security arrangements employed and who was responsible for these decisions,” Mr Di Maio said.

The trip was undertaken at the UN’s invitation, according to Mr Di Maio.

The two Italians had “entrusted themselves to the protocol of the United Nations”, which flew them on a UN plane from Kinshasha to Goma, (1,500 miles away, Mr Di Maio said.

The Italian embassy in Kinshasha,

Mr Di Maio noted, has two armoured vehicles at the ambassador’s disposal for moving around the city and the country. But for Monday’s mission, to visit a WFP school food project in Rutshuri in eastern Congo, Mr Attanasio was travelling in UN vehicles.

Only hours earlier, Mr Di Maio, flanked by Premier Mario Draghi, met the arrival of the bodies of the two Italians at a Rome military airport. A state funeral for both men was set for today in Rome. A special team of investigators, dispatched by Rome prosecutors, arrived on Tuesday in Congo on what Mr Di Maio said would probably be multiple missions to determine what happened.