Geneva - Children have been recruited as soldiers by rebel groups in the Democratic Republic of Congo and woman and girls have suffered sexual violence, UN officials said Friday.

"The rebels need to immediately release the children," said Veronique Taveau of UNICEF, the UN Children's Fund, adding that her organization was using the radio in Congo to issue this message to the fighters.

Berlin - Rebels have released the correspondent of a German newspaper who was abducted in the Democratic Republic of Congo, the German government confirmed Friday.

Thomas Scheen, 43, the Belgian-born correspondent of the daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ), was taken captive by Mai-Mai militias in the eastern part of Congo on Tuesday.

The German foreign ministry said Scheen and his two local assistants were safely in the hands of the UN peacekeeping force MONUC.

The FAZ said Wednesday that Scheen was seized after he "got caught between the fronts" in the eastern Congo region.

Nairobi/Goma - Forces of rebel general Laurent Nkunda were suspected in a massacre of dozens of young men in the eastern Congo town of Kiwanja, BBC reported Friday morning.

BBC said the United Nations was looking into reports, coming after the rebel forces recaptured the town which pro-government Mai-Mai militias had briefly taken control of.

The report cited relief organisation workers as saying taht they found dozens of corpses of young men believed to have been Mai-Mai fighters, in the town.

Meanwhile the aid organisation Save the Children reported a massive rise in forced recruitment of child soldiers amid the heavy fighting in eastern Congo.

New York - United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon on Thursday urged warring parties in the Democratic Republic of Congo to end hostilities, as he prepared to meet with African Union leaders to discuss the situation there.

The fighting in eastern Congo between government troops and a mixed militia group of the Coalition of Patriots in the Congolese Resistance (PARECO)/Mayi-Mayi and the National Congress in Defence of the People (CNDP) in the Rutshuru area marred a ceasefire agreement from August.

Frankfurt  - A correspondent for the German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) has been taken captive by armed militiamen in the conflict region in the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the newspaper confirmed Thursday.

The FAZ confirmed an earlier report in the Belgian daily Le Soir that correspondent Thomas Scheen, 43, had fallen into the hands of Mai-Mai militias.

Nairobi /Goma - A fragile ceasefire in the east of the Democratic Republic of Congo has broken down as rebels who last week launched a major offensive once more battled the Congolese army, the United Nations peacekeeping mission in the African nation said Thursday.

Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) called a ceasefire last Wednesday after its four-day offensive took it to the edge of Goma, the capital of North Kivu province.