Italy's ambassador to Congo Luca
Attanasio and his bodyguard, Carabinieri officer Vittorio
Iacovacci were killed by a Congolese kidnapping gang in North
Kivu a year ago after they were unable to pay the gang $50,000,
newspapers Corriere della Sera and La Repubblica said Monday.
The papers quoted World Food Organization (WFP) deputy director
Rocco Leone as telling Rome prosecutors who have accused him of
manslaughter in allegedly not respecting security protocols: "I
gave them everything I had, $300-400 and my phone. The
ambassador, too, started to remove everything he had on,
certainly his wallet and perhaps his watch. I told Iacovacci to
keep calm and not go for his gun, perhaps the ambassador told
him too.
WFP aide Mansour Rwagaza told the prosecutors: "the bandits told
us to hand over the money. They wanted $50,000, otherwise they
were going to take us into the forest and demand a ransom...I
told Rocco Leone that we would have to cooperate to stop being
shot".
It was then that the ambush turned into a tragic kidnapping
attempt, with shots exchanged.
Attanasio, 43, and 30-year-old Iacovacci were killed along with
their Congolese United Nations driver Mustapha Milambo near the
Virunga National Park on February 22, 2021.
The WFP delegation were travelling on a field visit.
The two-vehicle convoy with seven people was travelling in the
Congolese province of North Kivu, from the province's capital of
Goma to a WFP school feeding programme in Rutshuru, a town 70
kilometres north of Goma, on a route that would have taken the
vehicles through the natonial park.
North Kivu governor Carly Nzanzu said the convoy did not have a
security escort at the time of the attack.
The WFP has said minimum security protocols were respected.
Iacovacci's widow Zakia Seddiki Attanasio, a Moroccan woman he
met on a mission there and with whom he had three small
children, on Monday unveiled the Mama Sofia Foundation, the same
name as an aid association the slain envoy had opened in Congo.
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