One-hundred-three Chadian children are currently waiting in an orphanage to be reunited with their families, following their abduction by French charity workers who intended to take them to France for adoption.
The French workers, sentenced by Chadian courts to eight years of hard labor, falsely told the children’s parents that they would be taken to school in Abéché, Chad. “Parents are eager to let their child go to school,” said Annette Rehrl, a spokesmen for the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, citing the precarious conditions of the Chadian educational system.
The charity, Zoe’s Ark, told French families that the children were the first of 1,000 Sudanese orphans rescued from Darfur. The Ark’s fee was a hefty $2,000 per child.
Although Chad’s leader, Idriss Déby, is a close ally of French imperialism, the case highlights the grim profit opportunities created by the legacy of poverty and underdevelopment left behind by the colonial system.
