GOMA - Several people have been arrested in the Congo for the murder on Feb. 22 of the Italian Ambassador Luca Attanasia, his Carabinieri guard, Vittorio Iacovacci, and their Congolese driver Mustapha Milambo, according to local authorities.

  Felix Tshisekedi, the President of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, who is currently in Paris, said, “the investigations will continue. There are suspects that have been arrested. They will be interrogated. Behind these suspects, there is surely an operation… [the attackers] were organised in groups. They surely had mentors.”

  Tshisekedi added that Congolese authorities have “the collaboration of Italian services and we are working very hard.” In Italy, investigations are being conducted by Rome’s public prosecutor’s office, and the UN are also conducting an investigation, as Attanasio was on a UN mission at the time.

  According to Il Fatto Quotidiano, the day before the fatal ambush an official alert was raised in the area, though at the time Kinshasa, the capital, was not aware of it. It is being investigated why Congolese and UN officials allowed the convoy to go ahead, through a national park known to be extremely dangerous, with such little security. 

  A few weeks after the death of the ambassador, the magistrate investigating the incident was also killed on the same road, from Rutshuru to Goma.

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