ROME - The State funeral for the late Italian ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Luca Attanasio, and his Carabiniere police escort Vito Iacovacci was held Thursday at Santa Maria degli Angeli Basilica in Rome. They had been killed in an attack on Monday.

    Prime Minister Mario Draghi, Defence Minister Lorenzo Guerini, Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio and the Speakers of the Senate and the Lower House, Maria Elisabetta Casellati and Roberto Fico, were among the officials who attended to honour the two men. Their coffins were covered by the Italian flag.

    In the first rows were Attanasio's widow, who was wearing a black veil and held her three young daughters in her arms.

    In the funeral homily, Cardinal Angelo De Donatis said Attanasio and Iacovacci has put themselves at the service of other people "at the cost of losing heir own lives". He went on to say that “there is anguish that too many men are bewitched by money and plot the death of a brother. There is anguish because justice is not respected. Luca Attanasio and Vittorio Iacovacci were torn away from this world by the claws of ferocious violence, which will only bring more pain. Evil only brings more evil".

    Cardinal De Donatis also passed on the condolences of Pope Francis. Attanasio, Iacovacci and a Congolese driver, Mustapha Milambo, were killed on Monday while travelling from Goma to Rutshuru in the east of the African country where they were planning to visit a UN World Food Programme (WFP) school feeding programme.

    The DRC government has blamed the attack on Rwandan Hutu rebels, who have said Congo and Rwanda troops are to blame.

    Attanasio and Iacovacci were killed in an attempted kidnapping that tragically ended in a firefight and were not executed by their captors, according to autopsies performed in Rome on Wednesday.