Chad pilot has heart attack

2007-11-08 12:17

N'Djamena - Jacques Wilmart, the Belgian pilot held as part of the investigation into the alleged abduction of children from Chad by the French charity Zoe's Ark, has had a heart attack. Chad officials said that he had been transferred for treatment, but did not give details.

Meanwhile, Chad will investigate reports that at least 74 Chadian children were flown to France more than a month and a half ago without their parents' knowledge, says a senior judicial official.

Masngarel Kagah of the public prosecutor's department said a network of local human rights groups wrote to the public prosecutor's department with details about the 74 children flown to a military airport outside Paris on September 17, from Chad.

Kagah said that it was not clear who flew the children out of Chad, adding it might not be Zoe's Ark.

Six French Zoe's Ark workers had been charged in Chad with kidnapping for seeking to send 103 other children they claimed were orphans from war-wracked Darfur on a plane to France. They faced up to 20 years of hard labour if convicted.

The 74 children cited by the local human rights groups "have effectively been kidnapped. Kagah said they landed at this military airport to go to an unknown destination".

Kagah, who received the letter dated Tuesday and an accompanying document, said he would write to the public prosecutor, forwarding the documents and initiating an investigation.

Kagah said that the Network of Human Rights Associations in Chad gathered the information after several parents went to inform the organisation that their children were missing.

The children were aged between one and six, according to the letter that Kagah read. The accompanying document lists 74 names, said Kagah.

"We do not know how many children were transported in such conditions," said Kagah.

- AP