Detainees ‘must pay for food’

PARIS – The French army yesterday asked the families of six nationals detained in the central African nation of Chad over an alleged child kidnap attempt to pay 2 000 euros a month for their food, one of their lawyers said.

Gilbert Collard said: “The families have been informed on Wednesday by two counsellors of the foreign ministry that the French army needs to be paid for the rations.” He said the army had been demanding $2 925 from each family for every month of rations, adding: “The families are not in a position to pay this sum and …our compatriots will be forced to eat food doled out by Chadian authorities.””Given the food insecurity there, this is really sad,” he said, appealing to the French authorities to ‘have a minimum of decency’ and lambasting their ‘vulgarity which is really insupportable’.Collard said the army should provide free rations to the detainees.Six French members of the French Zoe’s Ark charity were still incarcerated in the Chadian capital N’Djamena on charges of kidnapping and fraud.Five other Chadian officials and a Sudanese refugee were also detained for complicity.In October, Chadian authorities halted the controversial operation in the eastern city of Abeche, as charity members tried to board a France-bound plane with 103 children.Zoe’s Ark had argued the children were orphans from Darfur, the bordering Sudanese region currently in the throes of a civil war.But international humanitarian organisations claimed that almost all the children were from Chadian villages in the border area, and had at least one parent or adult guardian.Also charged initially were three French journalists, seven Spanish air crew members chartered by Zoe’s Ark to take the children to France and a Belgian pilot who transported some of the children to Abeche.Nampa-AFPHe said the army had been demanding $2 925 from each family for every month of rations, adding: “The families are not in a position to pay this sum and …our compatriots will be forced to eat food doled out by Chadian authorities.””Given the food insecurity there, this is really sad,” he said, appealing to the French authorities to ‘have a minimum of decency’ and lambasting their ‘vulgarity which is really insupportable’.Collard said the army should provide free rations to the detainees.Six French members of the French Zoe’s Ark charity were still incarcerated in the Chadian capital N’Djamena on charges of kidnapping and fraud.Five other Chadian officials and a Sudanese refugee were also detained for complicity.In October, Chadian authorities halted the controversial operation in the eastern city of Abeche, as charity members tried to board a France-bound plane with 103 children.Zoe’s Ark had argued the children were orphans from Darfur, the bordering Sudanese region currently in the throes of a civil war.But international humanitarian organisations claimed that almost all the children were from Chadian villages in the border area, and had at least one parent or adult guardian.Also charged initially were three French journalists, seven Spanish air crew members chartered by Zoe’s Ark to take the children to France and a Belgian pilot who transported some of the children to Abeche.Nampa-AFP