Chad kidnap: 'Slavery is over'
2007-11-14 11:19
N'Djamena - Several hundred protestors took to the streets of the Chadian capital on Wednesday, stoning cars with foreigners inside and chanting anti-French slogans related to a child abduction scandal.
The demonstrators, some of them on motorbikes, protested in front of the French embassy - heavily guarded by Chadian police - as well as the French school in N'Djamena.
Cars carrying westerners were stoned as the crowd chanted slogans denouncing French President Nicolas Sarkozy. "Slavery is over," the crowd shouted.
Public anger in Chad had flared over what many saw as French efforts to intervene in the case of six French charity workers arrested over an attempt to fly 103 children to France.
The charity said the children were orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur region who it planned to place in foster care with families in Europe.
But Chad said the group did not have permission to take the children out of the country, and aid agencies that had since cared for the children said that most of them were Chadian and had at least one living parent.
The charity workers faced kidnapping charges.
Originally, 17 Europeans were arrested in the case, but 11 had since been freed, including three French journalists and four female Spanish flight attendants who were released after Sarkozy made a lightning trip to Chad on November 04.