The attack, on a World Food Program convoy headed to a school in North Kivu Province, left the ambassador, Luca Attanasio, an Italian embassy official and a driver dead.

Italy’s ambassador to the Democratic Republic of Congo was among three people killed in an attack on a humanitarian convoy on Monday near the city of Goma, aid groups and Italy’s Foreign Ministry said, the latest in a wave of violence in that part of the central African nation.

The ambassador, Luca Attanasio, was killed alongside an Italian embassy official named by the foreign ministry as Vittorio Iacovacci and a driver for the World Food Program.

The World Food Program said the attack “occurred on a road that had previously been cleared for travel without security escorts,” and said it would be working with the local authorities to determine the details of the attack.

The area of Congo where the attack took place, North Kivu Province in the east of the country nestled against the border with Rwanda, is known as a hotbed of violent activity, and is home to a tangled web of dozens of armed groups.

Carly Nzanzu Kasivita, the governor of North Kivu, said that the attack had taken place in an area where the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda had been operating for a long time, but that investigations were continuing.

The World Food Program said that a number of other people were injured in the attack.