Congo factions still recruiting child fighters: U.N.

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Armed groups in Congo's violence-torn east have ignored pledges made this year to stop recruiting children to fight and to free minors already in their ranks, the United Nations said on Wednesday.

Dozens of rebel movements and local militias signed up to a January 23 peace accord with Congo's government meant to end a lingering decade-old conflict in North and South Kivu provinces.

However, daily ceasefire violations have rocked the plan and U.N. officials say armed groups have flouted their obligations to respect human rights and stop using child soldiers.

"This solemn engagement, which demanded nothing more than good will on the part of the leaders of these armed groups, is still far from being a reality," Kemal Saiki, spokesman for Congo's U.N. peacekeeping mission, MONUC, told journalists.

UNICEF, the U.N. children's agency, said it had reports of continuing recruitment by local Mai Mai militia, Tutsi insurgents, and Rwandan Hutu rebels in North Kivu.

"We believe recruiting is still taking place, without question," Jaya Murthy, UNICEF's spokesman for the eastern part of Democratic Republic of Congo, told Reuters.

"We've seen children used as porters, for espionage, and in some instances on the front line as child soldiers. Armed groups have targeted them in schools and markets," he said.

Recruitment and use of children under the age of 15 by armed groups is considered a war crime under international law.

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announced it was seeking the arrest of Congolese warlord Bosco Ntaganda for conscripting children during a bloody ethnic conflict in the district of Ituri to the north of the Kivus.

Ntaganda is now the military chief of renegade General Laurent Nkunda's North Kivu-based Tutsi rebellion. Nkunda has yet to turn over his commander to authorities.

None of the groups accused of using child soldiers could be reached for comment on Wednesday.

STRUGGLING PEACE PLAN

The U.N.'s appeal for child soldiers to be handed over follows a surge in violence since late April due to fresh clashes involving Rwandan Hutu rebels.

At least 43 people were killed in fighting between Nkunda loyalists and the PARECO Mai Mai faction between April 20 and 28 in three villages around 100 km (64 miles) northwest of North Kivu's provincial capital Goma, MONUC said on Wednesday.

At least 16,000 villagers fled those and other clashes in the province over the same period.

North and South Kivu are still charged with racial tensions rooted in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which helped trigger Congo's 1998-2003 war, and are home to over 1 million internal refugees.

Around half of those fled fighting between government soldiers, Tutsi fighters, Mai Mai, and Rwandan rebels in the year leading up to the signing of the January peace agreement.

A central aim of the accord was to guarantee peace and allow refugees to return home and rebuild their shattered lives.

However, camps in the troubled province have continued to grow, and the U.N. estimates around 75,000 refugees have fled violence since the deal was signed.

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(Editing by Alistair Thomson and Mary Gabriel)