U.N. says Congo factions still recruiting child fighters

KINSHASA (Reuters) - Armed groups in Congo's violence-torneast have ignored pledges made this year to stop recruitingchildren 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 aJanuary 23 peace accord with Congo's government meant to end alingering decade-old conflict in North and South Kivuprovinces.

However, daily ceasefire violations have rocked the planand U.N. officials say armed groups have flouted theirobligations to respect human rights and stop using childsoldiers.

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

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

"We believe recruiting is still taking place, withoutquestion," Jaya Murthy, UNICEF's spokesman for the eastern partof Democratic Republic of Congo, told Reuters.

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

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

Last week, the International Criminal Court (ICC) announcedit was seeking the arrest of Congolese warlord Bosco Ntagandafor conscripting children during a bloody ethnic conflict inthe district of Ituri to the north of the Kivus.

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

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

STRUGGLING PEACE PLAN

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

At least 43 people were killed in fighting between Nkundaloyalists and the PARECO Mai Mai faction between April 20 and28 in three villages around 100 km (64 miles) northwest ofNorth Kivu's provincial capital Goma, MONUC said on Wednesday.

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

North and South Kivu are still charged with racial tensionsrooted in Rwanda's 1994 genocide, which helped trigger Congo's1998-2003 war, and are home to over 1 million internalrefugees.

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

A central aim of the accord was to guarantee peace andallow refugees to return home and rebuild their shatteredlives.

However, camps in the troubled province have continued togrow, and the U.N. estimates around 75,000 refugees have fledviolence since the deal was signed.

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(Editing by Alistair Thomson and Mary Gabriel)