Italy presses UN for anwers on attack leading to death of Amb.

Italy on Wednesday pressed the United Nations for answers about the attack on a U.N. food aid convoy in the Democratic Republic of Congo that left a young ambassador and his paramilitary police bodyguard dead.

Foreign Minister Luigi Di Maio told lawmakers in Rome that Italy has asked both the U.N. and the U.N. World Food Program to open an investigation into the security arrangements for convoy, which was attacked two days earlier.

The minister said Italy also will spare no effort to determine the truth behind the killing of Ambassador Luca Attanasio and Carabiniere paramilitary officer Vittorio Iacovacci.

A WFP Congolese driver, Moustapha Milambo, was also killed in the attack.

The trip was undertaken at the U.N.’s invitation, according to Di Maio.

The two Italians had “entrusted themselves to the protocol of the United Nations,” which flew them on a U.N. plane from Kinshasha to Goma, 2,500 kilometers (1,500 miles) away, Di Maio said.

The Italian embassy in Kinshasa, Di Maio noted, has two armored vehicles at the ambassador's disposal for moving around the city and the country.

But for Monday's mission, to visit a WFP school food project in Rutshuri in eastern DRC, Attanasio was traveling in U.N. vehicles.

A special team of Carabinieri investigators, dispatched by Rome prosecutors, arrived Tuesday in Congo on what Di Maio said would likely be multiple missions to determine what happened.

(Image credit: AP)