October 31, 2007
Aid Workers Charged In Alleged Rescue Attempt In Chad
Associates of the French charity Zoe's Ark who tried to fly more than 100 African children out of Chad last week are facing charges of kidnapping and child trafficking, sparking international conflict over the case and concerns about the future of humanitarian efforts in the region.
Nine French citizens and six Spanish nationals have been accused of abduction and fraud, and some of them face up to 20 years of hard labor in a Chadian prison, according to Chad's interior minister.
U.N. officials claim many of the children were actually from Chad, not refugees from Darfur, and there is no clear evidence they are actually orphans. Zoe's Ark counters that tribal leaders told them the children were from Darfur and that the children were to be placed in the French foster care system, which would qualify the airlift as a medical rescue operation rather than an adoption effort.
The French government is backing up the U.N. "According to initial information... there seem to be many Chadian children and even many who are not orphans," a government spokeswoman told reporters yesterday.
Eric Breteau, the leader of the group, met with the French government multiple times and was warned not to go ahead with the operation. Last summer, a French official met with the Chadian government to notify it of Zoe's Ark's plans.
The workers employed some questionable tactics in the airlift, including bandaging the children to try to make them look as though they had been injured in the conflict.
The incident may turn into more of an embarrassment than a serious break in relations between France and Chad, which was a French colony until 1960 and is about to receive a U.N. peacekeeping force halfway manned with French citizens.
But it could have a more wide-ranging impact on humanitarian efforts, raising already-high suspicions about Western interference among wary African citizens. Efforts from Zoe's Ark -- a nonprofit founded in 2005 to help orphaned children after the deadly tsunami in Asia -- are now largely focused on Darfur, where thousands of international peacekeepers are trying to step up efforts to help the war-torn population.
Posted at 9:25 AM
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Africa, Europe, France
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