Chad jails French over Darfur 'child trafficking'

from: Times Online

An attempt to fly 103 "orphans" from Darfur to homes in France ended in fiasco today when Chad jailed nine French citizens and their charity was accused of trafficking children.

As dozens of would-be host families waited in vain at an airport near Reims, confusion surrounded Children Rescue, an operation which had been publicised for months but appears to have flouted basic laws on children and immigration.

France, Chad and Unicef, the UN children's organistion, denounced the operation as illegal and a criminal inquiry was opened in Paris. But Zoe's Ark, a small charity based near Paris, insisted that it had planned the action with pure humanitarian motives to save children's lives and emphasised that they were not destined for adoption.

The affair began yesterday, when the authorities at Abeche, in eastern Chad near the Darfur border, blocked the departure of an airliner chartered by Zoe's Ark. The children, aged between 1 and 9 but mostly 4 or 5 years old, were to be the first of 1,000 children that the charity aimed to bring from the war-ravaged region of Sudan.

Six escorts and three French journalists accompanying them were accused them of child smuggling. Two of the journalists work for France 3, a state television network. One, from the CAPA photo agency, was investigating the work of the charity.

Idriss Deby, the President of Chad, visited the children at a home in Abeche today and promised "severe punishment" for what he called the "inhumane, unthinkable and unacceptable" conduct of those accompanying them. "It is a horrible act, which I say is a crime. I strongly condemn it," he said during his visit. "All administrative and judicial steps will be taken so that these people and their accomplices pay for their actions. " Chad's Interior Minister said that some of the children were Chadian and not all were orphans.

The charity said that the children had been gathered in Darfur and cared for by the charity's staff for the past month. Zoe's Ark added that Chad security forces had severely beaten its detained personnel.

The French families, who had each paid about €1,400 (£1,000), were angered to be seen as victims of fraud or exploiters of misery. "We are devastated," said Delphine Philibert, one of those waiting for the children at Reims-Vatry airport. "To think that the authorities can suspect us of playing a role in the trafficking of children is totally ignoble," she said.

Christine Peligat, 42, an education counsellor whose teacher husband was among those arrested in Chad, said that she had been hoping to welcome a five-year-old girl. "There is no doubt that this is a serious association," she said of Zoe's Ark. "This is an aberration. It's inconceivable to talk about child trafficking," she told The Times.

The French Government confirmed that it had been aware of the operation for months and had repeatedly warned Zoe's Ark, which was founded by a group of part-time firemen in 2004, to obey Sudanese and international law.

Rama Yade, a junior Foreign Minister who travelled to Darfur this week, said: "We know absolutely nothing about how these children were gathered. We don't know their origins, their nationality or the reality of their family situation. Taking them like this is illegal and irresponsible," she said. Ms Yade, who is of Senegalese origin, called for urgent relief in Darfur this week, saying that 75 children were dying of neglect and hunger there every day.

In Geneva, Unicef said the operation had broken all rules. "These children cannot be considered for international adoption and the priority should be to trace their families," said a spokeswoman. "Even if their mothers or fathers have died, it could be the case that they are able to find relatives who are still alive, and a community and home to go back to once the conflict is over," she added.

Jacques Hintzy, head of Unicef in France, said that his organisation had been in contact with the children and most appearred not to be orphans. "They are four or five years old on average. They are a little shocked obiously," he said. Unicef will try to trace their parents, he said.

Mr Hintzy said that he could not decide whether the project had been motivated by financial greed or whether it was simple recklessness. The charity, whose founder, Eric Breteau, is one of the detained, rejected media allegations that it had been seeking to profit by selling children for adoption. In France, more than 30,000 families are awaiting the chance to adopt after meeting the arduous criteria for official permission to do so.

One media report said that the Ark had collected over €1 million with its internet campaign to sign up 1,000 host families. "We never intended them to be adopted. Our action was simple," said Stephanie Lefebvre, secretary-general of the charity. "We just wanted to save them from death, by giving them a host family." About 300 families in France and Belgium had volunteered to take the orphans into their homes, Ms Lefebvre added.

Mr Breteau, a volunteer fireman, built up the charity with colleagues and friends after the Tsunami disaster in the Indian Ocean. Contributions from across France enabled them to run a village for orphaned children in Indonesia. Over the past year, they have turned their resources to Darfur, sending medical and other personnel to care for children there.

Last month Mr Breteau told the French media: "These children's lives are threatened and there is no diplomatic or political solution for ending the massacres being perpetrated in Darfur. We have to evacuate them from the conflict zone."