Authorities in Chad block attempts to fly children to Europe

Authorities in Chad said today they were holding seven crew members of a plane contracted to fly more than 100 children out of the impoverished African country, as President Idriss Deby called an attempt by nine French citizens to take the children away to Europe “shocking” and promised punishment for anyone found to have been involved.

Deby travelled on Friday to the eastern city of Abeche where 103 children were being cared for after authorities arrested the French citizens, who had attempted to fly the children to France. French aid group, L’Arche de Zoe, or Zoe’s Arc, said it had arranged French host families for the children. It said they were orphans from Sudan’s crisis-stricken Darfur region.