Sudan fears organ trafficking in French ‘abduction’

November 19, 2007 (KHARTOUM) — A top official in Sudan’s main ruling National Congress Party said Monday that a French charity’s attempt to fly out more than 100 African children was perhaps a cover for organ trafficking.

“The question is why these children were being taken to the West? Perhaps to provide organs such as hearts and kidneys to elderly patients,” Nafi Ali Nafi, number two of the NCP, told a party news conference.

“Other than that, the affair underscores a decline in moral values of those who falsely pretend to defend human rights,” added the vice president of the NCP, which is led by Sudan’s President Omar al-Beshir.

“I cannot believe France did not know,” said Nafi, despite denials from the French authorities.

Six French members of charity Zoe’s Ark and four Sudanese officials are being held in Chad, pending an investigation into alleged child abduction that has been vigorously denounced by Sudan.

Zoe’s Ark says the children were orphans from Sudan’s war-torn Darfur who it planned to place in foster care with families in Europe.

But Chad says the group did not have permission to take the children out of the country, and aid agencies have since said most are Chadian with at least one living parent.

(AFP)