UN team looking into reports of child abduction

The UN Mission in South Sudan (UNMISS) reported that a joint team from UNMISS and the UN refugee agency (UNHCR) visited Wau Shilluk in the world's youngest country last Friday, following reports about the abduction of children from the area by gunmen in military uniforms, a UN spokesman said here Thursday.

"Witnesses informed the UN team that boys as young as 14 were taken from the town," UN spokesman Stephane Dujarric said at a daily news briefing here.

"The Mission says it is following up on reports that the abductors allegedly belonged to a pro-government militia operating in Upper Nile State," he said.

"The Mission also says that the head of the Mission, Ellen Margrethe Loj, met with (South Sudanese) President Salva Kiir on Wednesday and she expressed concerns about the reports and urged the president to take action," said the spokesman.

On Saturday, the United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) condemned in the strongest terms the abduction of scores of boys, some as young as 13, by an armed group near Malakal in the north of South Sudan.

"The recruitment and use of children by armed forces destroys families and communities," said Jonathan Veitch, UNICEF's representative in South Sudan. "Children are exposed to incomprehensible levels of violence, they lose their families and their chance to go to school."

Veitch urged the armed group to immediately release the children.

A UNICEF education team reported that 89 children were abducted in the community of Wau Shilluk in Upper Nile State, where thousands of people have been internally displaced by the ongoing conflict. The actual number could be higher.

According to witnesses, armed soldiers surrounded the community and searched house by house. Boys older than 12 years of age were taken away by force.

UNICEF reminded all parties involved in the conflict that the recruitment and use of children in armed forces and groups is a grave violation of international law. Endite