Jailed French aid workers fly home

Updated 21.06 Fri Dec 28 2007
Keywords: Zoe's Ark, France, Chad

Six French aid workers sentenced to hard labour in Chad have returned to France under an accord between the two states.

French Justice Minister Rachida Dati formally requested their repatriation under the terms of a 1976 bilateral judicial accord between Paris and its former colony.

France had asked Chad to send home the four men and two women from French humanitarian group Zoe's Ark

The four men and two women from the French humanitarian group Zoe's Ark were sentenced to eight years of hard labour for attempting to take 103 children, aged one to ten, from the central African country in October.

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.

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