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 06 July 2008 14:18 BST

Unicef says Chadian children will be returned to families

Friday, 07 Mar 2008 17:45
The children have bee staying in N-Djamena
The United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef) has said that over 100 children will be retuned to their families after a French charity tried to take them out of Chad.

The 103 children have been staying at a Unicef orphanage in Chad's capital, N-Djamena, since the Zoe's Ark charity tried to airlift them out of the country claiming they were Darfur refugees.

Upon being caught, the charity's head Eric Breteau and five colleagues were sentenced to eight years hard labour by a Chad court in December, before being sent to France to serve their sentences.

Charity staff had claimed that they believed the children to be orphans when they were caught trying to fly them from the eastern Chad town of Abeche to France in October last year.

However, it was later discovered that almost all the children had at least one living parent.

Unicef has said the children are now to be handed back to their families or guardians within the next few days, some five months after the international incident.

Several anti-French protests broke out in the African country in the aftermath of the case and tensions have been raised higher as France prepares to send a 3,500 strong EU peacekeeping force into eastern Chad to protect refugee camps in the region bordering Darfur.

Chad's president Idriss Deby Itno though has said today that he would grant a pardon to the aid workers.End of story


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