(Adnkronos) – Fifteen Italians remain in the Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict-hit eastern city of Goma, mainly priests and nuns and long-term residents, the foreign ministry said after foreign minister Antonio Tajani had a phone conversation Tuesday with Italy’s envoy to Kinshasa.
Italy’s embassy in neighbouring Uganda’s capital, Kampala, which is responsible for Rwanda, is standing by to give cross-border assistance after rebels backed by the country marched into Goma on Monday, according to the foreign ministry statement.
At least 17 people are reported to have been killed and nearly 400 wounded in the worst escalation of a long-running conflict between ethnic Tutsi-led rebels and government forces in mineral-rich DRC in over a decade.
Marco Rigoldi, who arrived with his pregnant wife in Kigali are among Italians who have managed to reach Rwanda on journeys being overseen by the embassies in Kinshasa and Kamapala and the foreign ministry’s crisis unit, the statement said.
Unlike some other embassies, Italy’s embassy in Kinshasa has not been targeted by a strong wave of protests in DRC’s capital over the rapid deterioration of the situation in volatile North Kivu province around Goma, the statement concluded.