French president denounces charity workers in Chad orphan row

Oct 29, 2007, 12:48 GMT

Paris/Nairobi/Abeche - French President Nicolas Sarkozy on Monday described as 'unacceptable' an attempt by a French charity to transport 103 purported orphans from the Chad-Darfur border region to adoptive families in France.

Sarkozy had on Sunday personally spoken to Chadian President Idriss Deby about the matter, a spokesman for the Elysee Palace said.

Six members of French aid organization Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark) were among 17 people arrested on Friday at the airport of Abeche, in eastern Chad, as they were preparing to leave the country with the children on a Boeing 757 aircraft.

Amid reports that the children may not be Sudanese orphans, President Deby described the aid group's operation as 'child trafficking.'

'Their aim is to kidnap the children from their parents, to steal the children from their parents and sell them to paedophile organisations in Europe, and even perhaps to kill them and sell their organs,' Deby said.

Representatives of Zoe's Ark have however defended their actions as a genuine humanitarian effort, insisting they had been given assurances that the children were orphans and that they were seeking to bring them to safety.

The Paris public prosecutor's office has opened an investigation into the affair.

Officials in Chad are trying to determine the identity of the children, none of whom have any identification papers.

Many of the children appear to be Chadian, rather than Sudanese orphans, the BBC reported citing the president of the French national committee for UN children's agency UNICEF.

The children additionally appeared to be in good health, despite the official designation of the aid operation as being on medical grounds. UNICEF officials said bandages had been put on the children to make them appear as war victims.

The children are currently in an orphanage in Abeche where they are being cared for by local aid workers and UNICEF staff.

'Many of the children cry at night and call for their parents,' one UNICEF aid worker told the BBC on Monday.

'Our impression is that the majority aren't orphans, but at this stage it's just an impression,' said Jacques Hintzy, head of UNICEF France.