74 Chadian kids flown to France

N’DJAMENA – Chad will investigate reports at least 74 Chadian children were flown to France more than a month and a half ago without their parents’ knowledge, a senior judicial official said yesterday.

A network of local human rights groups wrote to the public prosecutor’s department with details about the 74 children said to have been flown from Chad to a military airport outside Paris on September 17, said Masngarel Kagah of the public prosecutor’s department. French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani dimissed the report as an unfounded rumour.”This information is among the rumours circulating around the Zoe’s Ark affair.It is without foundation,” she said.Kagah said that it was not clear who flew the children out of Chad, adding it may not be Zoe’s Ark, the French aid group that was stopped from taking other children out of Chad last week.Six French Zoe’s Ark workers have been charged in Chad with kidnapping for seeking to send 103 other children they claimed were orphans from war-wracked Darfur on a plane to France.They face up to 20 years at hard labour if convicted.The French Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the claims by Zoe’s Ark that the children were orphans from neighbouring Sudan’s Darfur, where more than 200 000 people have been killed since fighting erupted in early 2003.While Zoe’s Ark says its intentions were purely humanitarian, UN and other aid agencies say taking children – even those in desperate circumstances – away from their families and culture may not be the best way to help them.The affair also has focused attention on the inability of many African governments to safeguard children and ensure that those claiming to want to help are not sex or labour traffickers.Kagah said that the Network of Human Rights Associations in Chad gathered the information about the 74 children after several parents went to inform the organisation their children were missing.The children “have effectively been kidnapped.They landed at this military airport to go to an unknown destination,” Kagah told The Associated Press.Kagah, who received the letter dated Tuesday and an accompanying document, told The Associated Press he will write to the public prosecutor, forwarding the documents and initiating an investigation.Nampa-APFrench Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani dimissed the report as an unfounded rumour.”This information is among the rumours circulating around the Zoe’s Ark affair.It is without foundation,” she said.Kagah said that it was not clear who flew the children out of Chad, adding it may not be Zoe’s Ark, the French aid group that was stopped from taking other children out of Chad last week.Six French Zoe’s Ark workers have been charged in Chad with kidnapping for seeking to send 103 other children they claimed were orphans from war-wracked Darfur on a plane to France.They face up to 20 years at hard labour if convicted.The French Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the claims by Zoe’s Ark that the children were orphans from neighbouring Sudan’s Darfur, where more than 200 000 people have been killed since fighting erupted in early 2003.While Zoe’s Ark says its intentions were purely humanitarian, UN and other aid agencies say taking children – even those in desperate circumstances – away from their families and culture may not be the best way to help them.The affair also has focused attention on the inability of many African governments to safeguard children and ensure that those claiming to want to help are not sex or labour traffickers.Kagah said that the Network of Human Rights Associations in Chad gathered the information about the 74 children after several parents went to inform the organisation their children were missing.The children “have effectively been kidnapped.They landed at this military airport to go to an unknown destination,” Kagah told The Associated Press.Kagah, who received the letter dated Tuesday and an accompanying document, told The Associated Press he will write to the public prosecutor, forwarding the documents and initiating an investigation.Nampa-AP