Doubts about charity work lead to the detention of 12 people in Chad

I have seen this last week and again today, with more information, on Euronews, so I went looking for information on other sources.

French held over Chad 'adoptions'

Nine French citizens have been arrested in Chad, accused of making an unauthorised attempt to fly more than 100 children out of the country.

They include the head of a group called Arche de Zoe (Zoe's Ark) that had said it wanted to bring children from Sudan's Darfur region to France.
Source

This looks like, at least, an under-prepared, under-planned and irresponsible action, at most it could be an organised kidnapping of children with the disguise of a charity.

Given the possibility of this being an organised effort to "import" children for adoption, I agree that this case should be carefully investigated, there are too many NGOs today and it would be easy to make one fake (or with just a mask of legality) NGO to make illegal activities.

This organisation, L'arche do Zoé (Zoe's Ark), was formed by motoring enthusiasts from the French four-wheel-drive community to aid victims of the December 2004 Asian tsunami.

Other sources, with more or less the same information.

Time
Al Jazeera
Reuters

PS: as usual, I searched ATS and found nothing, so I thought I would post it here, sorry if I missed it or posted in the wrong place.

I just heard this on the CBC on my way home this evening. Sounds like they have arrested a couple of media types as well. I ll see if the Ceeb has anything different than your links and post it if they do.

Good post

Thanks for the fine information ArMaP, I had no knowledge of this going on, it is so sad that these types of people would use the disguise of charitable organizations to commit these types of acts.

Chad's president, Idriss Déby, said that he hopes that the three French journalists and the flight crew of seven Spaniards and a Belgian can be released, and apparently is ready to intervene in the case as soon as it is legally possible.

The Red Cross and the UN confirm that most of the children were living with their families, and that some will probably never see their families again because it is very difficult to find them, especially in the case of the younger child, a one year old girl.

It was confirmed that all the children are in good health, although some have been treated for minor injuries.

Source