The Italian Foreign Ministry on Monday confirmed the death of its ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Luca Attanasio, who was traveling with a United Nations convoy in the east of the country.
“It is with deep sadness that the Foreign Ministry confirms the death, today in Goma, of the Italian Ambassador to the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Luca Attanasio, and of a soldier,” said a statement . According to a diplomatic source in Kinshasa, the diplomat was shot dead.
They were traveling by car “in a Monusco convoy”, the mission of the peacekeepers which has been present in the DRC for twenty years, further specifies the ministry’s statement.
Italian Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio, who was in Brussels for a meeting with his European counterparts, announced his early return to Rome.
Luca Attanasio, 43, had been ambassador to the DRC since October 2019, after arriving in the country two years earlier as head of mission, according to his official biography.
He entered a diplomatic career at the end of 2003, after studying business at the Luigi Bocconi University of Milan.
He started in the Directorate of Economic Affairs, before working on African issues and international cooperation.
Abroad, he was first appointed head of the economic and commercial section at the Bern embassy (2006-2010), then consul general in Casablanca, Morocco (2010-2013). After a stint in Rome, he also became a counselor at the Italian Embassy in Nigeria in 2015.
#Italy #confirms #death #ambassador
