Seven Europeans among 17 detained for over a week in an alleged attempt to kidnap 103 African children were released, a lawyer for the group said Sunday, as the French president flew to Chad to discuss the case.The actions by this "charitable" group led to an international incident that put a French peacekeeping mission along the border region with Darfur in jeopardy and once again put European actions in Africa into the spotlight. Africans are quite sensitive to what Europeans have done in Africa in the past, and Zoe's Ark appears to have engaged in nefarious activities, which included taking children from their homes - not assisting orphans from the Darfur genocide.
The Europeans — among them nine French citizens — were arrested Oct. 25 when a charity calling itself Zoe's Ark was stopped from flying the children to Europe. The group said the children were from Sudan's Darfur region and that it intended to place them with host families.
French media reports said French President Nicolas Sarkozy would seek the release of three French journalists the group detained and return to Paris with them later Sunday aboard his presidential plane. International journalists' groups have protested their detention.
A lawyer for the journalists and four female flight attendants from Spain said the seven were freed by Chadian judicial authorities. "They are free. It's over. It's the end," said the lawyer, Jean-Bernard Padare.
Zoe's Ark maintains its intentions were purely humanitarian and that it had conducted investigations over several weeks to determine the children it was taking were orphans.
However, France's Foreign Ministry and others have cast doubt on the group's claims that the children were orphans from Sudan's western Darfur region, where fighting since 2003 has forced thousands to flee to Chad and led directly or indirectly to the deaths of more than 200,000 people.
The members of Zoe's Ark remain in custody, while the journalists and air crew of the plane were released.
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