France frees pardoned aid workers

All six French aid workers convicted of a mass kidnapping in Chad have been freed in France, hours after the Chadian president formally pardoned the group, the French Justice Ministry said.

The six, from a charity called Zoe’s Ark, had tried to spirit 103 children to France in October, claiming they were orphans from Sudan’s Darfur region. But an investigation showed that the children were Chadian, and that most had at least one parent or a close adult relative.