Six French aid workers sentenced to hard labour in Chad for trying to kidnap 103 children will be returned to France on Friday under an accord between the two states, a Chad Justice Ministry official said.
France had asked Chad to send home the four men and two women from French humanitarian group Zoe’s Ark so they could serve their jail terms in France under the terms of the 1976 bilateral judicial accord.
They had been sentenced to eight years’ hard labour, having been arrested in October as they tried to fly the children, aged one to 10, to Europe for fostering with families.
French Justice Minister Rachida Dati formally requested for the six to be transferred to serve their terms in France under the accord between Paris and its former colony.
Zoe’s Ark had said it was helping to rescue orphans from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur region across Chad’s eastern border.
But most of the 103 children were found to have come from families in Chadian border villages who were persuaded to give up the infants with promises of education at local centres. — Reuters