Kidnap-claim six are flown back to France

SIX French aid workers jailed in Chad for trying to kidnap children left for France yesterday with hopes of having their sentences quashed there.

The members of Zoe's Ark charity, who had all been given eight years' hard labour, were transported to an airstrip in a prison van.

They were held in October after Chad authorities stopped the aid group's convoy with the 103 children, whom they were planning to fly to France.

The six insisted they were driven by compassion to help orphans in Darfur, which borders Chad. Later inquiries showed most of the children had at least one parent or adult relative.

The case has embarrassed France and sparked protests in Chad, a former French colony.

Aid workers say their already difficult job along Darfur's border has been complicated by the suspicion some now have toward all foreigners professing to offer help. Days after the Zoe's Ark workers were arrested, the Republic of Congo said it was suspending international adoptions after the events in Chad.

France's role in the region has already come under scrutiny in recent months as the European Union plans to send a military mission to Chad to protect refugees fleeing violence in neighbouring Sudan.