Sudanese children kidnapped in Chad last year return home

March 24, 2008 (KHARTOUM) — Around half a dozen Sudanese children who were kidnapped last year by French group out of Chad will return to home according to a Sudanese official.

The Sudanese minister for social affairs Samia Mohamed said that the children will be handed over to their parents starting Wednesday.

Mohamed told the official Sudan news agency (SUNA) that her ministry engaged in extensive contacts with UNICEF and Red Cross to bring back the kids and identify their families.

Nine French nationals, six reportedly members of an aid group and three of them journalists, were arrested last October in connection with a plot to spirit more than 100 children, mostly Chadians, out of Chad on the grounds that they were Darfur orphans in danger of being killed.

The children’s ages range from 1 to 12, with most of them 3 to 8 years old. The French group named Zoe’s Arc said it had arranged French host families for the children.

Six of the French aid workers were eventually convicted and sentenced to eight years of hard labor by a Chad court.

Mohamed also said that her ministry is also seeking compensation for the families of the children.

(ST)