French group says aimed to help Chad children

By Jean-Francois Rosnoblet

MARSEILLE, France (Reuters) - A French organization whose members were arrested in Chad as they prepared to fly 103 children to France said on Monday they were trying to help the children, not abduct them, and they acted legally.

Members of Zoe's Ark including its president are among nine French citizens and eight other Europeans that Chad accuses of trying to smuggle the children to Europe.

Zoe's Ark said the operation offered a better life to orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, many of whose people have fled over the border to camps in Chad.

"We are dealing with humanitarian hardliners who walked off the beaten track," Gilbert Collard, a lawyer for Zoe's Ark, told reporters in the southern French city of Marseille.

"They wanted to do things differently -- that doesn't mean they wanted to do it dishonestly," he told a news conference.

But some children have said their parents are still alive, and they were lured from their villages on the Chad-Sudan border with offers of sweets and biscuits.

A reporter for French news agency CAPA was among the French people arrested, and CAPA released footage of interviews with members of Zoe's Ark in which one person said they were not sure the children were indeed orphans in need of help.

"We tried to verify as much as possible. We can never be sure, of course. We cannot be sure about this information," said one unidentified man who was among those arrested.

He and the head of Zoe's Ark, Eric Breteau, said in the footage that the children had been brought to them and that they had not entered Sudan.

Media rights group Reporters Without Borders called for the CAPA reporter and another journalist who was covering the operation to be released immediately.

The children were due to be housed in host families who paid the group several thousand euros each. Zoe's Ark had previously said it aimed to have children adopted but it has stopped referring to adoption, which is not authorized in Chad or Sudan.

The French government has repeatedly condemned the operation and France's ambassador to Chad said on Sunday those involved would have to face Chadian justice.

The incident threatens to complicate relations between France and its former colony as a predominantly French European Union force prepares to deploy in eastern Chad, one of Africa's most violent regions, to protect civilians there.

"POLITICAL EXPLOITATION"

France's Foreign Ministry issued a warning about Zoe's Ark in August, saying there was no guarantee the children were helpless orphans and casting doubt on the project's legality.