Chad:The row over 16 Europeans accused of attempting to illegally transport more than 100 children from Chad to France will not affect the upcoming deployment of an EU peacekeeping force to the country, the Chadian government has said.
Nine French nationals, including three journalists, have been charged with abduction and fraud after they were caught putting 103 children on a chartered plane in the eastern town of Abeche last week. They could face sentences of up to 20 years if convicted. Seven Spanish aircraft crew were charged with complicity, along with two Chadians, believed to be local officials.
Six of the French detainees are members of a charity named Zoe's Ark, a relatively obscure organisation originally set up to help victims of the 2005 tsunami in Indonesia. The charity insists it is innocent of any wrongdoing, saying it planned to place orphans from the Darfur region of Sudan with French host families who had paid several thousand euro each.
However, UN and French officials have said most of the children were not orphans.
French officials say Zoe's Ark members were previously warned they could be breaking the law if the operation went ahead in Chad.
"There are several problems with this association: why did they act illegally, and with what motive?" French president Nicolas Sarkozy said yesterday, adding he would speak to Chad's president, Idriss Deby, to "draw his attention to the [ principle of] presumption of innocence".
The episode, which has provoked outrage in Chad, has strained relations between the two countries ahead of the arrival of a predominantly French EU peacekeeping force charged with helping protect refugee camps in eastern Chad. The camps accommodate more than 200,000 people who have fled the violence in neighbouring Darfur, in addition to Chadians displaced by local unrest.
The EU force, which is also expected to include more than 300 Irish troops, is due on the ground within the next month.
The operational commander for the mission is Deputy Chief of Staff of the Irish Defence Forces Maj-Gen Pat Nash.
A senior Chadian official told French radio the debacle would not affect the EU mission. "When this affair erupted, the president gave assurances to French authorities that this case of transporting children would not call into question the deployment of the European force . . . that is clear," said Mahamat Hissene, Mr Deby's chief of staff, dismissing concerns the row could be used as a bargaining chip.
Meanwhile, humanitarian organisations in Chad were still dealing with the fall-out from the episode yesterday. The Chadian government has withdrawn all permits allowing foreigners to travel to and within the eastern region, leaving many aid workers stranded in the capital N'Djamena.