[ad_1]
“TOif it’s red, negative “. Three code words. It was enough: to open the Rn2 road to the Italian convoy that was heading to Rutshuru on Monday morning and to close the fate of Ambassador Luca Attanasio, Carabiniere Vittorio Iacovacci and their driver, Mustafa Milambo Baguna. In the radio communications of those working in the Congo, the “red axis” is the alert. And it means that an armed escort is needed on that road, provided by the blue helmets of the Monusco mission or by the Congolese army. “Negative, red axis”, on the other hand, is the message that Italian security receives on Friday at 10.30 am, just after landing in Goma with the Monusco 5y-Sim jet. There are 72 hours to check the state of the roads with the UNDSS, the UN security department that must protect the internationals: the time it takes to prepare the ambush, while Attanasio begins his short and visible humanitarian tour. “Red axis, negative”: it is on that approval, perhaps too superficial, that the ROS investigations that flew from Rome to North Kivu on Monday are now concentrated.
“Dangerous road”
Who spoke it? And based on what certainties? The UN World Food Program, which organized the visit to the school in Rutshuru, provided explanations, ensuring the safety of the route. At the Goma hospital, the carabinieri hear the shocked story of the local WFP deputy director, Rocco Leone, who was in a jeep and escaped the attack. “Usually those who go to Rutshuru are escorted by the police,” explains one missionary. “This path is not particularly dangerous, for years we have traveled without problems”, says an Italian volunteer living in Goma, Nicolò Carcano: “But Attanasio was not just a humanitarian – he adds – he was an ambassador. And I think there must be a different treatment for an ambassador.
Flowers and caresses
The coffins return to Italy in the dark, with the honors due to an ambassador and a soldier who fell like this. Covered in flowers in Kinshasa, Zakia caresses them, Luca’s wife, who keeps the three girls protected from the tragedy. And embraced by the tricolor, Prime Minister Mario Draghi receives them in Ciampino – President Mattarella is not there because he is unwell – awaiting the solemn funeral. First, the autopsies: ROS investigators demanded that Congolese touch the crime scene as little as possible, asking that they search the weapons of all soldiers and rangers from the shooting.
The bullets
You have to understand whose they are, the bullets they killed. With surprising speed, for a government that has never provided even the final data from the last elections, the Kinshasa Interior Minister managed in 24 hours to tweet (and then delete) that the ambush was “specifically directed against the ‘Italian ambassador’ , concluding that the machetes and the five Ak-47s certainly belonged to the Fdrl’s Hutu guerrilla, the Rwanda Democratic Liberation Front, one of the 170 gangs that dominate the eastern savannah. “We have nothing to do with that,” he denied. the Front at one point, and it hardly matters that the bandits spoke Rwandan in a region where everyone speaks Rwandan: “Rather than resort to hasty accusations, we are calling for an independent investigation to shed light on the responsibilities of this ignoble murder. The convoy was attacked not far from the positions of the Congolese armed forces and the Rwandan army ”(which has been unlimited for months). How many half-truths: the local police chief, despite the fact that his men received him at the Goma airport, repeats that no one knew of the ambassador’s presence. And the hostages from the convoy? Mystery about who they are and if they exist. “It was an unusual attack,” says Christophe Garnier, MSF’s chief medical officer in Congo: “It was organized by experienced people. And if the hostages died, maybe it was to send a message. To who? It is not clear”.
Feb 23, 2021 (change Feb 23, 2021 | 23:32)
© REPRODUCTION RESERVED
[ad_2]
