• Ambassador Luca Attanasio, his bodyguard and a World Food Program driver were killed after their convoy was attacked by militants during a visit near Goma on Monday.
• Congo’s Interior ministry said a Hutu militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR) was behind the killings.
Image: TWITTER
The killing of Italy’s ambassador to Kinshasa in eastern DR Congo demonstrated the precarious situation in the country, and the Great Lakes region by extension.
Ambassador Luca Attanasio, his bodyguard and a World Food Program driver were killed after their convoy was attacked by militants during a visit near Goma on Monday. Attanasio had been Italy’s head of mission in Kinshasa since 2017 and was made ambassador in 2019.
The UN, the ICC and President Felix Tshisekedi, among other leaders, have condemned the attack.
UN Secretary General’s Deputy Special Representative in the DRC David McLachlan-Karr said he was “upset by the death of Ambassador Luca Attanasio”.
“Those responsible for this attack must be identified and prosecuted with the utmost determination,” McLachlan-Karr said
Secretary General António Guterres, through spokesperson Stéphane Dujarric, called on the DRC government “to quickly investigate this heinous attack by a joint UN mission on the ground and to bring the perpetrators to justice.
I call on the authorities to fully investigate this incident and bring those responsible to justiceICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda
ICC Prosecutor Fatou Bensouda condemned the incident, saying attacks on humanitarian or peacekeeping convoys may constitute crimes under the International Criminal Court.
“I call on the authorities to fully investigate this incident and bring those responsible to justice,” Bensouda said in a statement.
President Tshisekedi has since instructed the authorities to investigate and bring the perpetrators to justice and also dispatched an envoy to Rome over the killing.
“The Head of State firmly condemns these heinous acts perpetrated in Kibumba near Goma (North Kivu) and instructs the competent services to shed light on this subject so that their perpetrators are identified and brought to justice,” DR Congo’s presidency said in a statement.
Congo’s Interior ministry said a Hutu militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda was behind the killings.
The killings occurred in the same area where two Britons were kidnapped by suspected FDLR militia in May 2018, leading the park to close to tourists for nine months. The couple was released after several days.
FDLR, founded by members of the militia behind the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, is one of the many armed groups operating in and around Virunga National Park, which lies along DR Congo’s borders with Rwanda and Uganda.
Kivu Security Tracker in its February report identified 122 different armed groups operating in Kivu, Ituri and Tanganyika.
The study found that conflict and insecurity have continued to plague populations in the eastern region.
“Amidst a global pandemic draining humanitarian funding – only 34% of requested annual aid had reached the Congo in 2020 – conflict continues to simmer, with a record high of 5.5 million displaced across the country,” said the report titled 'The landscape of armed groups in eastern Congo: Missed opportunities, protracted insecurity and self-fulfilling prophesies'.
The data also showed a steep rise in killings, violent deaths and other forms of violence since 2019.
Today, the Kivu Security Tracker is publishing a report on the new mapping of armed groups in eastern #DRC. In total, we have identified 122 different armed groups, and we have published a description of each of them. https://t.co/SWMaPxB8zY pic.twitter.com/9P66CBxaxV
— Baromètre sécuritaire du Kivu (@KivuSecurity) February 22, 2021
The recent killings follows another attack in which men armed with knives, machetes and pick-axes murdered 10 people in an overnight raid on a village in the region on February 15/16.
The UN says killings by armed groups more than doubled last year.
UNHCR spokesman Babar Baloch said violence in Ituri, North Kivu and South Kivu has “become part of a systematic pattern to disrupt civilians’ lives, instil fear and create havoc”.
On December 8, 2017, the Semuliki operating base, 27 miles from the town of Beni — northeastern Congo — was attacked, resulting in the killing of 15 UN peacekeepers and five Congolese soldiers by rebels of the Allied Democratic Forces.
In October last year, DRC and Burundi moved to neutralise insurgents through a joint operational plan and organising coordinated patrols on both sides of the border.
President Évariste Ndayishimiye on Monday said the region and the international community must combine efforts to eradicate the armed groups that disrupt the region's security.
In its December 2019 report, Crisis Group warned that the persistence of the over 100 armed groups in eastern DRC is a threat to both Congolese civilians and regional stability.
"The country’s neighbours have also often used these militias as proxies to attack one another and control economic resources," said 'A new approach for the UN to stabilise the DR Congo' report.