In Darfur Kidnapping Case, Evidence Some Children Were Not Orphans
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N’DJAMENA, Chad — Chad’s president said yesterday he hopes his country’s judicial system will quickly free journalists and an air crew detained in connection with a French charity that was trying to fly children it claimed were orphans to Europe from Darfur.
Seventeen Europeans have been detained by Chadian authorities over the past week, including six French citizens who were charged with kidnapping. Three of the detained are French journalists. Seven Spaniards, including two pilots, are part of the air crew as well as a Belgian pilot. The journalists and crew are being held without charge.
“I hope that Chadian justice can very quickly shed light on this affair and that the journalists and the air hostesses and those not involved can be freed without delay,” President Deby said on state television.
President Sarkozy of France called Mr. Deby yesterday and had an “extremely positive” conversation, France’s presidential spokesman, David Martinon, said.
Earlier yesterday, humanitarian workers cast new doubt on claims by the charity Zoe’s Ark that it was helping Darfur orphans by trying to fly them to Europe, saying most of the children appear to have at least one living parent.
Fallout from the scandal reached across Africa to the Republic of Congo, where officials suspended international adoptions.
Zoe’s Ark was stopped last week from flying the children from Chad to Europe, where the group said it intended to place them with host families in foster care. The group says its intentions were purely humanitarian and that it had conducted investigations over several weeks to determine that the children had no parents.
But the French Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the claims that the children were orphans from Darfur, where more than 200,000 people have been killed since fighting erupted in early 2003.
Adding to the questions, the International Committee of the Red Cross and two U.N. aid agencies said they conducted several days of talks with 21 girls and 81 boys aged between 1 and 10 at an orphanage in eastern Chad.
“Ninety-one of the children referred to a family environment made up of at least one adult person whom they consider as a parent,” the U.N.’s Children Fund, the U.N. refugee agency and the Red Cross said in a joint statement.
UNICEF insists that the child’s best interest should always be paramount in an international adoption.