Summary

On February 22, a convoy carrying World Food Programme (WFP) workers and Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Luca Attanasio, was attacked in North Kivu, resulting in the death of Attanasio and two others.

The incident underscores an increasingly volatile security outlook in northeast DRC, which has become a nexus for trans-national militant groups operating across the borders of Uganda, Rwanda, and Burundi, and the conflict minerals (notably gold, tin, copper, and tantalum) that help sustain their operations.