The Democratic Republic of Congo has accused a Rwandan Hutu rebel group of attacking the convoy in which Italy’s ambassador to Kinshasa, Luca Attanasio, was killed. Two others died in the attack near the eastern town of Goma. They were taken to the UN field hospital in Goma run by the Indian Army. India has over 2000 troops, police and medical personnel deployed in the UN stabilisation mission in Congo (MONUSCO). Attanasio died of his wounds in the hospital. They were travelling in a MONUSCO convoy heading for a school where the World Food Programme is involved. It is suspected the rebels wanted to kidnap the Italian envoy. Italy’s President Sergio Mattarella condemned the “treacherous act of violence,” describing it as a “cowardly attack”. Over 2,000 civilians were killed last year in eastern Congo in violence by armed groups; 5.2 million people have been displaced. The group blamed for the envoy’s killing is also accused of involvement in the 1994 Rwandan genocide in which 800,000 people, mostly Tutsis but also Hutu moderates, were slaughtered by the Hutu majority.
