Aid Workers Charged

Chadian authorities said Tuesday, Oct. 30, they had charged six French nationals, who were employees of an aid agency, with attempted kidnapping.

An mob of several dozen people gathered outside the court house in Abeche, calling the Europeans "thieves, killers", and accusing former colonial power France of being an "accomplice."

Citizens of Spain and Belgium have also been charged as accomplices, the Associated Press reported. They could face decades in prison, including hard labor, if found guilty.

French Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Pascale Andreani said Tuesday that France was sending a doctor and legal adviser to meet with the group's detained members.

The six were employees of a French aid group called L'Arche de Zoe, or Zoe's Arc, and were arrested Thursday as they were preparing to leave with the children from Abeche, an eastern city near Chad's border with Sudan.

The aid workers have insisted that they were told the children were orphans from Sudan's war-torn western region of Darfur, which borders Chad. The workers said they were taking the children out of the country to France to receive medical treatment.

However, an investigation, partly involving United Nations workers, revealed that none of the children was injured. Investigators also found that many of the children may not have been orphans.

Zoe's Arc said it had arranged for French host families to care for the children, but the organization denied charges that the children were to be given up for adoption. According to the AFP news agency, some of the families each paid between 2,800 euros and 6,000 euros ($4,000 and $8,600), supposedly for the evacuation costs of the children.

French police have reportedly been investigating the activities of Zoe's Arc since July.

Other nationals charged

Chadian authorities in the eastern city Abeche have also charged three French journalists, who were accompanying the aid workers, with complicity in the case.

A further seven -- of the Spanish flight crew from the aircraft that was to fly the children to France -- as well as the Belgian pilot have been charged as accomplices, Radio France Internationale (RFI) reported.

RFI said it was unclear whether two Chadian nationals arrested with the 16 Europeans had also been charged with complicity.

Chad's Interior Minister Ahmat Bachir said the accused would be flown to the capital N'Djamena this week.

EU forces in Darfur-Chad region not at risk

Meanwhile, the French government has said a multinational European Union force in the Darfur-Chad border region would not be jeopardized.

"This affair has absolutely nothing to do with the deployment of the multinational force," French Junior Minister for Human Rights, Rama Yade, told Europe 1 Radio, according to the DPA news agency.

Over the weekend, French president Nicolas Sarkozy said Zoe's Arc's actions were "illegal and unacceptable." He also said he had spoken with Chadian President Idriss Deby.

Deby himself has described the actions of the aid workers as "simple kidnapping." He also accused the French organization of wanting to "sell (the children) to pedophile organizations in Europe, and even perhaps to kill them and sell their organs," according to DPA.

However, Deby also reportedly told Sarkozy that the affair would not affect the deployment of 3,000 European troops, half of whom are French, scheduled to arrive in eastern Chad and the northern region of the Central African Republic in November. The soldiers are to help safeguard camps holding refugees fleeing Darfur.

More than four years of conflict there have left more than 200,000 people and 2.5 million people displaced.

The 103 children who were on their way to France are currently in an orphanage in Abeche, where they are being cared for by local aid workers and UNICEF staff.