Latest update: 04/01/2008 

Mai Mai, a new militia in North Kivu
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A new mysterious group that calls itself "Mai Mai" has taken up arms and struck new alliances against the troops of dissident General Laurent Nkunda. (Report: A. Zajtman)

At least 54 children have been recruited as soldiers by rival militias in Nord-Kivu in eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, the United Nations children's fund (UNICEF) said on Friday.

 

UNICEF is "very concerned" about the renewed recruitment of child soldiers, with at least 54 children forcibly enlisted at Nyamalima on the Ugandan border according to aid workers on the ground, spokeswoman Veronique Taveau told journalists.

 

"We are worried that children who benefited from UNICEF's demobilisation programmes are now being re-recruited by the militias," she added.

 

The UN refugee agency meanwhile said that nearly all of some 35,000 Congolese refugees who fled to Uganda last week
 

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