The U.S. Treasury Department on Tuesday blacklisted two senior leaders of the Congolese militant group Mouvement Du 23 Mars, Baudoin Ngaruye and Innocent Kaina, for recruiting and using child soldiers and other human rights abuses. These sanctions targeting Mouvement Du 23 Mars (M23) come weeks after the UN added Ngaruye and Kaina, both of who are 34, to its consolidated travel ban and asset freeze list. "M23 leaders Ngaruye and Kaina are responsible for carrying out terrible acts of violence against civilians and children in the (Democratic Republic of the Congo)," said Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) Director Adam Szubin. "We will continue to work with our partners in the international community to bring about an end to this conflict." M23 is a militant group that operates in the Congo's volatile east, where political and ethnic rifts, together with competition over vast mineral resources, threaten to ignite a regional war. It consists of rebels who defected
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