Most of the 103 children that a French group had planned to fly out of Chad as orphans said they had families with at least one close relative, UN agencies said today.
UN and Red Cross officials who interviewed the children said most told them they had local families. But the Red Cross report did not specify whether the relative was the mother or father in every case.
A report by the United Nations children's agency Unicef, the UN refugee agency UNHCR and the Red Cross said most of the 21 girls and 82 boys aged one to 10 came from villages on the Chad-Sudan border.
Nine French nationals, seven Spaniards and at least two Chadians were arrested in eastern Chad last week after authorities stopped them from flying the children to Europe.
They are being held on charges of abduction and fraud, and face possible forced labour terms if tried and convicted.
The detained French are members of a group called Zoe's Ark, which said it wanted to place orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region with European families to give them a better life.