Speaking after the Working Group’s 31st visit to the country, the chair of the United Nations body urged all the groups to develop time-bound action plans on the removal of children armed groups, in line with the Council’s previous resolutions.

The Working Group specifically wants the group known as Armée Populaire pour la restauration de la République et de la Démocratie (APRD) to remove children from its ranks and to ensure the comprehensive and definitive release of all remaining children.

The Working Group expressed to the government serious concerns over recruitment and use of children by local self-defence militias and called upon the authorities to reiterate their prohibition of the practice, ensure the immediate and unconditional release of all children associated with those groups, and to deny support for militias that recruit and use children.

Addressing the Union des Forces Démocratiques pour le Rassemblement (UFDR), the Front Démocratique du Peuple Centrafricain (FDPC) and the Mouvement des Libérateurs Centrafricains pour la Justice (MLJC), the Working Group voiced concern over ongoing recruitment of children and other violations against children and called upon the three groups to immediately cease the abuses enter into dialogue with the UN.

The Working Group also expressed concern over the lack of humanitarian access in areas under the control of the Convention des Patriotes pour la Justice et la Paix (CPJP) in the north-eastern part of the country, as well as persistent reports of recruitment and abuses of children.

The Working Group welcomed the announcement of a ceasefire by CPJP, and encouraged the faction to start dialogue with the Government with a view to signing the Libreville Comprehensive Peace Agreement. It strongly condemned abuses against children committed against children by the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA), including recruitment, rape and other forms of sexual violence and abductions in the south-eastern and eastern areas of CAR.

Last April , Security Council raised serious concerns about the continued recruitment of children by armed groups in the Central African Republic (CAR) and called for measures to address the ongoing “protection crisis” in the country. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon noted several factors contributing to the protection crisis, which affects women and children in particular.

These include sporadic fighting between Government forces and armed groups – despite the signing of a peace agreement in June 2008 – and widespread banditry, as well as extreme poverty and the lack of capacity of the defense and security forces and the judiciary.

The UN boss observed continued grave violations, like killing of children, sexual violence, attacks on health centres and denial of humanitarian access. He also noted that during the visit of his Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Radhika Coomaraswamy to CAR in May 2008, the leadership of the two groups that signed the peace agreement with the Government – the Armée populaire pour la restauration de la République et la démocratie (APRD) and the Union des forces démocratiques pour le rassemblement (UFDR) – committed to preparing action plans to stop child recruitment.