Chad charges 16 Europeans with abduction

Last Modified: 30 Oct 2007
By: Katie Razzall

16 Europeans are charged with abduction and fraud after accusing them of trying to illegally fly more than a hundred children out of Africa.

Chad today charged nine French people with abduction and fraud and seven Spaniards as accessories, after accusing them of trying to illegally fly more than a hundred children from Africa to Europe last week.

The Chadian interior minister said they had falsely claimed the children were ill - and could face up to 20 years in prison with hard labour if convicted.

The men and woman, members of French organisation Zoe's Ark, are now being held in Abeche. They say they were rescuing children from war-torn Darfur.

"Nothing is sure, but we've tried our best to find out, to get all the information so we can be close to ascertaining that they were really orphans, and that they needed to be helped. Nothing is really ever sure when you do this kind of thing, but there is a will to do something - they've been forgotten for years - in every village, in every corner of Darfur, children are dying and continuing to die because they've been completely abandoned."
Zoe's Ark spokesperson on 24 October 2007

False claims

However, these children aren't orphans and the motives of the organisation that took them unclear.

Arrested during the night curfew as they tried to transport the children to this chartered plane, the youngsters were healthy say the authorities but had been made to look ill.

"These children were under camouflage in vehicles and buses. A scenario had been created, they had band aids on their arms and legs and some even had drips but the needle was just under the band aid to pretend.., to give the impression that those children were sick."
Ahmat Bachier, Chadian Interior Minister

Lured

Believed to be from around Adre on the border with Darfur - a volatile and dangerous area - some have said they were lured from their villages with offers of biscuits.

Today, the French prime minister condemned the planned evacuation, as 103 children, some just babies, are left bewildered and so far unidentified.

Who are Zoe's Ark?

- The Arche de Zoe charity was formed by French four-wheel-drive motorists to help victims of the December 2004 Asian tsunami.

- Their current focus is on evacuating 10,000 child victims of the Darfur war for medical reasons and having them fostered by French families.

- The UN says many of the youngsters are from Chad, not Sudan, and there is no evidence that they are orphans.

- Zoe's Ark says tribal leaders in Sudan told them all the children were Darfuri orphans.

- French Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs and Human Rights Rama Yade says these plans are not backed by the French government.

Saving Darfur's children - the mission on the Zoe's Ark website, where the all-too-real horrors of the conflict are laid bare - the organisation dubs itself a humanitarian association and, to the theme tune of Russell Crowe's Gladiator, says it plans to evacuate 10,000 orphans to Europe and the US.

The evacuees from Darfur will be met by "willing and benevolent" families who will help them claim immediate asylum. there is no mention of adoption.

One French couple paid several thousand euros to Zoe's Ark and say they never intended to adopt a child, simply help one. But Channel 4 News has learnt that France's leading agency for inter-country adoption had been warning its government for months about the organisation.