Kuwait Times

Published Date: October 31, 2007

ABECHE: Sixteen Europeans charged over the alleged abduction of 103 children sat in a dusty cell in eastern Chad yesterday, as a row escalated in France over the failure to prevent the operation.

Nine French nationals, including six members of the charity Zoe's Ark and three journalists, were charged late Monday with "kidnapping minors" and "fraud" for attempting to fly the children from the Chad-Darfur border to France, prosecutors in the eastern town of Abeche said.

Seven Spanish aircraft crew and two Chadian nationals were charged with complicity. Spain's foreign ministry said it "disagrees" with the charges and would seek the release of its nationals.

An angry mob of several dozen people gathered outside the court house in Abeche, calling the Europeans "thieves, killers", and accusing former colonial power France of being an "accomplice".

An AFP journalist saw the Europeans, in very low sprits, held in a single room in the Abeche court ahead of their transfer to N'Djamena.

The French charity workers were wearing fireman's trousers and t-shirts marked "Children Rescue", the name of their operation. Spanish women among the flight crew fought to hold back tears.

France, which is investigating Zoe's Ark for illegal adoption, denied that the nine had been indicted, saying a prosecutor had only requested charges.

The Europeans were detained Thursday as they prepared to put the children on a chartered flight to France. The children were presented as orphans whose lives were at risk from civil war in Sudan's Darfur province.

The UN children's agency UNICEF said Tuesday it does not yet know for sure if the 103 children are orphans but the French foreign ministry acknowledged that the children were mostly "Chadian, with Chadian parents," not Darfur orphans.

Chadian President Idriss Deby has suggested the group planned to sell the children or "kill them and remove their organs", drawing accusations that he is seeking to whip up public anger for political gain.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has condemned the operation. But his government is under pressure to explain why it allowed the operation to get so far.

Officials say they warned the charity they would be breaking the law, while it has been revealed that French military planes in Chad carried charity members on several occasions.

Le Figaro newspaper reported that a French government official and gendarmes were due to "welcome" the flight carrying the children at an airport east of Paris.

We have got ourselves into an impossible situation and I would like to know exactly what the French authorities' role was," said the former Socialist prime minister Laurent Fabius.

It is obvious the French authorities know what goes on in Chad," he said.
In this sorry affair, France has appeared confused, short of decent explanations, incapable of taking proper preventive action. In sum, guilty, at least, of negligence," wrote the influential Le Monde newspaper.

Liberation newspaper said it "cannot doubt the goodwill of the head of Zoe's Ark" and suggested the government was "heaping blame on its compatriots in jail" to "deny its own responsibilities.

France has 1,000 troops and fighter jets stationed in Chad, which is to start hosting a French-led European peacekeeping mission to protest refugee camps on the Darfur border from next month.

Paris says the deployment will not be affected, but experts warn the crisis comes at a critical time.

Eastern Chad is home to some 236,000 refugees from Darfur as well as some 173,000 people displaced by a local rebellion.

Aid workers in Abeche have been trying to piece together the background of the children, aged one to 10, who were to be adopted or fostered by families in France each paying 2,800 to 6,000 euros (4,000 to 8,600 dollars).

Meanwhile, France's foreign minister yesterday slammed a French charity for acting "without rule" after 16 Europeans were arrested in Chad and accused of abducting more than 100 children.

It is not my vision of humanitarian action to act without rule ... in a country which is not ours," Bernard Kouchner told AFP in Bangkok, where he met Thai officials over the political crisis in Myanmar.

Nor is it my vision of humanitarian action to attack the government for wrong reasons," he added.

The seven Spanish crew of the aircraft and two Chadian nationals were charged with complicity to kidnapping.

The Europeans were arrested Thursday as they prepared to put the children, presented as orphans whose lives were at risk from civil war in Sudan's western province of Darfur, on a chartered flight to France.

The French government, which says it warned the charity it risked breaking the law, is also under pressure to explain why it failed to stop the operation, and why French army planes in Chad carried charity members on several occasions.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy, eager to limit the diplomatic fallout with an important African ally, has condemned the operation as "illegal and unacceptable.

Non-governmental organisations are not governmental and, fortunately, they are free but sometimes it is unfortunate also," said Kouchner, who was reluctant to speak on the subject and said his priority here was Myanmar. "I will say more when I will know the details of the case. I know some but not enough." - Agencies