Body of Italian ambassador killed in Congo returned to Rome

Rwandan Hutu rebels said to operate near where Luca Attanasio was killed, but the group denies responsibility

Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi touches one of the two coffins containing the bodies of Italian ambassador Luca Attanasio and his bodyguard Vittorio Iacovacci as they arrive at Rome's Ciampino airport following a deadly attack in the Democratic Republic of Congo, in Rome, Italy. Reuters

Prime Minister Draghi, Defence Minister Lorenzo Guerini, rear left, and Foreign Affairs Minister Luigi Di Maio, rear second left, attend a ceremony for the arrival of the coffins of the ambassador and police officer. AFP

A woman cries on one of the two coffins. Reuters

Prime Minister Mario Draghi and other officials at the airport. Italy’s ambassador to Democratic Republic of Congo died with two others on Monday after an attack on a UN convoy. Reuters

A priest blesses the coffins carrying the bodies of the ambassador and his bodyguard. Reuters

Ambassador Attanasio, 43, had represented Italy in Kinshasa since 2017, the foreign ministry said. Reuters

The assault that led to the ambassador's death was part of a kidnap attempt, reports said. Reuters

Carabinieri police officers carry one of the coffins. AFP

Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio broke off a meeting in Brussels with EU counterparts to make an early return to Rome after the killings. Reuters

The body of the Italian ambassador killed in the Democratic Republic of Congo arrived in Rome late on Tuesday, as Rwandan Hutu rebels denied accusations they were behind the attack and instead blamed the armies of the DRC and Rwanda.

Luca Attanasio, 43, died on Monday after a World Food Programme (WFP) convoy was ambushed in a dangerous part of eastern DRC.

The envoy's Italian bodyguard, Vittorio Lacovacci, and Congolese driver Moustapha Milambo also died on the field trip.

An Italian military plane carrying Attanasio and Lacovacci's flag-draped coffins was met at Rome's Ciampino airport by Prime Minister Mario Draghi.

Foreign minister Luigi Di Maio and defence minister Lorenzo Guerini joined him to meet Attanasio's widow and three daughters, who flew home with the bodies.

"He was always a person who was focused on other people," the slain ambassador's father, Salvatore Attanasio, told Italy's Ansa news agency.

"The memories of a lifetime passed by in 30 seconds," Salvatore said. "The world caved in on us."

The DRC's interior ministry on Monday blamed the killings on "members of the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR)" – a Rwandan Hutu rebel group that has plagued the region for more than a quarter of a century.

But the FDLR rejected the allegation, blaming the Rwandan army and the Armed Forces of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (FARDC) in a statement received by AFP on Tuesday.

It said the ambassador's convoy was attacked near the Rwandan border, "not far from a position of the FARDC".

"The responsibility for this despicable killing is to be found in the ranks of these two armies and their sponsors who have forged an unnatural alliance to perpetuate the pillaging of eastern DRC," it said.

Authorities in both countries did not report the presence of any regular Rwandan troops in the DRC.

An expert at the Kivu Security Tracker, a US monitor, told AFP that the Hutu rebel group, however, has a known presence in the region.

"The FDLR are near the place where the attack took place. It's in the realm of possibility that the Rwandan rebels are responsible," the expert said.

Scores of militias roam the DRC's four eastern provinces, many of them a legacy of wars in the 1990s that sucked in countries around central-southern Africa and claimed millions of lives.

Monday's attack occurred north of the North Kivu capital of Goma on National Highway 2 – a road that runs through thickly forested, mountainous terrain next to the border with Rwanda.

Mr Tshisekedi's office said Attanasio left on Monday morning in a two-vehicle WFP convoy heading for Kiwanja, in the Rutshuru area, accompanied by his bodyguard and WFP workers.

The convoy was ambushed three kilometres from their destination by six assailants armed with five AK-47 assault rifles and a machete.

"They proceeded by firing warning shots before forcing the people in the vehicles to get out and follow them into the depths of the [Virunga] park, which they did by shooting dead one of the drivers to create panic," the president's office said.

Park rangers and army troops nearby heard the noise and pursued the attackers.

"Five hundred metres [from the site of the ambush] the kidnappers fired point-blank at the bodyguard, who died on the spot, and at the ambassador, hitting him in the abdomen," the presidency said.

After the Italian government expressed shock and outrage at the attack, newspapers in Rome on Tuesday raised questions about security preparations for the trip.

The DRC interior ministry said on Monday that security services and provincial authorities had not been informed of the trip in advance.

"[They] were unable to provide special security for the convoy or come to its aid because of a lack of information about their presence in this part of the country, despite its reputation for instability," it said.

But the WFP said the attack "occurred on a road that had previously been cleared for travel without security escorts".

A UN humanitarian official in the DRC said that this meant the convoy had to be a minimum of two vehicles.