GOMA (DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO) – An armed group in eastern Congo was accused by the government for initiating an ambush on a United Nations convoy, which resulted in the killing of Italy’s ambassador and two other people, has denied any involvement in the attack.
Congo’s interior ministry on Monday levelled criticism on a Hutu militia called the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR). It has been active near the location where ambassador Luca Attanasio, 43 and his bodyguard Vittorio Iacovacci, 30, were killed.
Local officials said World Food Programme driver Mustapha Milambo was also killed.
The FDLR was founded by senior Rwandan officers and militiamen who, according to the United Nations and others have helped orchestrate the 1994 genocide in neighbouring Rwanda. It is one of around 120 armed groups actively functioning in eastern Congo.
The rebel group said in a statement on Tuesday, condemning what it called a “cowardly assassination. The FDLR declare that they are in no way involved in the attack.”
Congo’s presidency said that Monday’s ambush was carried out by six armed men, who brought the two-car convoy to a halt on the road north from North Kivu’s provincial capital Goma.
The attackers took the seven passengers away from the cars after taking the life of one of the drivers.
The presidency said, adding that it was sending a team for conducting probe on the same. “The kidnappers fired point-blank shots at the bodyguard who died on the spot and at the ambassador, wounding him in the abdomen. The ambassador died of his wounds an hour later at the United Nations peacekeeping hospital in Goma.”
Pierre Boisselet from the Kivu Security Tracker, a research initiative which traces unrest in the region, said the FDLR could not be cancelled out.
“(But) we haven’t seen, and the government hasn’t shown so far, evidence proving the FDLR’s responsibility at this stage,” Boisselet said.