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KIRAN, Sri Lanka, June 30 (Reuters) - Dozens of young men have been rounded up and abducted in eastern Sri Lanka, the United Nations and residents say, probably to train as fighters for rival ethnic Tamil groups. With violence between the government and Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) at its highest level since a 2002 truce, the mainstream Tigers are also facing off against a breakaway faction known as the TMVP who analysts say may be army-backed. "They came at three o'clock at night to the next road," 55-year-old Krunaharan Ratha told Reuters inside her shop in the town of Kiran in the eastern Batticaloa district. "They took two or three boys. No-one knows where they are. I have sent my two sons away from here because of fear." Many residents on the main road through Kiran have fled, fearing a Tiger attack on an army convoy might prompt military retaliation. Most houses are shuttered and empty. The LTTE have long been accused of using child soldiers in their two-decade war for a separate Tamil homeland. They deny it, but UN children's fund UNICEF say boys and girls continue to be grabbed. And they say TMVP abductions are soaring. The majority of those taken appear to be over 18. But UNICEF says it knows of at least 50 children, some as young as 13, taken by TMVP fighters loyal to former eastern Tiger leader Karuna Amman since March, most in the last 10 days. "We always assume that only a third of cases are reported to us," said UNICEF official Yasmin Ali Haque. "LTTE abductions are still continuing. But what is different here with Karuna is people are being rounded up. Not just children, but older men." The government has denied backing Karuna, who split from the mainstream rebels in 2004. But many diplomats are skeptical and international monitors say troops have turned a blind eye to him. Aid and development officials estimate there are around 1,000 underage youths among the mainstream Tigers' 10,000-20,000 fighters, most of whom are over the age of 16. "Even one child being taken is not acceptable," Ali Haque said. "We are calling on the government to provide security for these children. Children are not protected here at the moment." The Tigers and the TMVP deny being behind any abductions. ROUNDED UP Men and boys, sometimes more than a dozen at a time, are rounded up and loaded onto vehicles by known Karuna supporters, aid staff say. Few have been seen since. Development and human rights workers say it is not clear how large-scale abductions can take place so close to army checkpoints, or how the victims can be transported freely though one of the most militarized areas in Sri Lanka. Some speculate the sudden recruitment drive signifies that Karuna expects either soon to launch an offensive against the LTTE or to have to fight off his former comrades. In almost every Tamil area that Reuters visited near Batticaloa, from villages to dusty camps for the displaced from the 2004 tsunami, people talked of recent abductions. But with unsolved killings almost as common, few dare apportion blame. More than 700 people have been killed so far this year in north and east Sri Lanka. A few scraps of burnt cloth and discoloured sand on the road into the village of Vippulandaparum near Batticaloa mark where the shot bodies of three young men were burnt earlier in the week on the day they disappeared. "We know who did it but we will not tell because of fear," said Nadesan Wengalasalam, 55.