 |
 | Home | Contact Us | FAQ | Search & Site Map | Link to Us |
 | Sign In | Join | Other 45 Sites in Network |
Family Forum / Parenting / Adoption / November 2007Chad case children not orphans, says UN
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2203816,00.html Chad case children not orphans, says UN Angelique Chrisafis in Paris Friday November 2, 2007 The Guardian Most of the 103 African children whom a French group had prepared to fly to Europe were not Darfur orphans as claimed, but had been living with their families in eastern Chad, UN agencies said yesterday. Members of the French association Zoe's Ark were arrested in Abeche, Chad, last week after they were caught trying to fly the children to Europe and hand them to French and Belgian "host" families. They were charged with abduction and fraud and face possible forced labour terms of up to 20 years if convicted. Chad's president, Idriss Déby, said last night that he hoped two French journalists and several Spanish flight attendants held with them would soon be freed. The journalists had been covering the Zoe's Ark operation and the airline crew worked on a plane chartered to transport the children. A Spanish and a Belgian pilot and at least two Chadians are also being held. Mr Déby was less hopeful about the quick release of the Spanish pilot, but said Chad's justice system would decide. The French group had insisted they were acting for humanitarian reasons to save Darfur war orphans and that local tribal chiefs had testified the children were sick, destitute and had no families. But after interviewing most of the children, aged between one and 10, UN agencies and the International Red Cross confirmed that 91 said they had been "living with their families consisting of at least one adult they considered to be their parent". "They are not orphans and they were not sitting alone in the desert in Chad, they were living with their families in communities," said Annette Rehrl of the UN high commission for refugees. The interviews suggested 85 of the children came from villages in eastern Chad on the border with Darfur. It did not specify their nationality. Some had told journalists that their parents were alive and they were lured from their villages with offers of sweets and biscuits. On Wednesday night Congo-Brazzaville suspended international adoptions as a "preventive measure" in the aftermath of events in Chad. 7 Released Faked wounds on children On Nov 2, 9:02 am, kippaherr...@hotmail.com wrote: > http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2203816,00.html > [quoted text clipped - 43 lines] > On Wednesday night Congo-Brazzaville suspended international adoptions > as a "preventive measure" in the aftermath of events in Chad. Chad Releases 7 Seized Trying to Fly Children Out Sign In to E-Mail or Save This Reprints Share Del.icio.us Digg Newsvine Permalink By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: November 5, 2007 NDJAMENA, Chad, Nov. 4 (AP) - Chad on Sunday released seven of the Europeans detained for over a week after they were accused of trying to kidnap 103 African children. Skip to next paragraph Enlarge This Image Susana Vera/Reuters President Nicolas Sarkozy of France with some of the Spanish flight attendants after they arrived in Madrid from Chad. The seven - three French journalists and four Spanish flight attendants - left the country with France's president, Nicolas Sarkozy. The Europeans, among them nine French citizens, were arrested Oct. 25 when a charity, Zoé's Ark, was stopped by Chadian authorities from flying the children from eastern Chad to Europe. The group said the children were from the Darfur region of Sudan and that it intended to place them with host families. Mr. Sarkozy met with Chad's leader, Idriss Déby, before leaving Chad on his official jet with the seven who were released. The status of the other detainees, who face charges of kidnapping or complicity, was unclear. Mr. Déby said he acted on his own volition. "There is no pressure on Chad, nor on President Déby," he said. The French television channel M6 showed a documentary on Sunday that raised further suspicions about how the charity operated, made mostly with video shot by one of the journalists who flew home with Mr. Sarkozy. The video, shot by Marc Garmirian of the Paris-based Capa Presse agency, shows one charity worker haphazardly screening children taken by tribal elders to the group's center in eastern Chad. Speaking through translators, the aid worker demands neither details nor basic documentation or verification of the children's identities. Asked if she could be mistaken on basic facts - for example, whether the individual children are Chadian or Sudanese or whether they are indeed orphans - she acknowledges that she could be wrong. In other scenes, the charity workers wrap the children's heads and limbs in gauzy bandages, dousing some of them with iodine to make them look, in the words of one worker, like "war casualties." Zoé's Ark maintains that its intentions were purely humanitarian and that it conducted investigations over several weeks to determine whether the children it was taking were orphans. France's Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the group's assertions that the children were orphans from Sudan's western Darfur region, where fighting since 2003 has forced thousands to flee to Chad. Aid workers who interviewed the children said Thursday that most had been living with adults they considered their parents and that they came from the Chadian-Sudanese border region. |
Reply to this Message |
 Sign In
 Join
 My Latest Posts My Monitored Threads My Blog My Photo Gallery My Profile My Homepage Start New Thread Enable EMail Alerts Rate this Thread
|
©2010 Advenet LLC Privacy Policy - Terms of Use
This website includes both content owned or controlled by Advenet as well as content owned or controlled by third parties.