SAVING African children from misery is undoubtedly a noble sentiment; but it is also fashion today and is the subject of predilection during the champagne-caviar soirees of the moneyed class in London, New York or Paris. Inevitably as it were, it is now being exploited in the Western world by those who see in it a chance to make a fortune.

This is done in a subtle way, with the help of well-known movie stars whom you see on the billboards, newspaper and magazine pages and on television screens promoting this product and that. Then you say to yourself: ‘such a nice person who cares so much about the African kids can’t be wrong about this perfume, those hand bags, that brand of coffee or these wristwatches.’However, a Frenchman named Eric Breteau decided to leave Madonna, Angelina Jolie, Brad Pitt and George Clooney miles behind with a heroic plan that demanded no tricky advertising gimmicks but direct action.

Breteau’s project was audacious but simple. Taking his cue from Noah’s Ark in the Bible, he created a charity organisation in 2007 that he named Zoé’s Ark. Well-to-do, mostly retired people were asked to become members with a modest contribution. Then that amount was multiplied manifold… from 90 to 2,000 euros and more.

The Darfur conflict that had broken out two years earlier had caused 250,000 displaced persons, the organisation’s letter informed its contributors. Many of these were orphaned children and Zoé’s Ark would be transporting thousands of them to safety in especially chartered flights. This would need money and everybody was asked to be generous about it.Curiously enough, the headquarters of the rescue operation organised by Eric Breteau and his girlfriend Emilie Lelouche were situated not in Sudan’s Darfur region, but in Abéché, a town across the border in the neighbouring Chad. As a beginning, a chartered Boeing 757 was to take off on Oct 25 with 103 ‘badly injured Darfur kids’ aboard to be brought to Paris where they were to be treated in hospitals then handed over to French foster parents who would pay an undisclosed price to the Ark for adopting them.

When these tiny ‘war victims’ were grouped together in Abéché, local residents noticed to their surprise that the heavily bandaged children, many with plastered arms and legs, played mirthfully shrieking, giggling and talking without any evident signs of sufferance. Even stranger was the fact they didn’t speak Sudanese but clearly the Chadian language.

Doubts were raised and police was called in. When bandages and plasters were taken off it was revealed that none of the 80 boys and 23 girls was injured, all were Chadians and none was an orphan. They were quite simply on the verge of being kidnapped by Breteau, Lelouche and company.

New slave trade

The next day President Idriss Déby of Chad visited the centre where the children were sheltered. He angrily referred to a new era of slave trade, a pedophile racket and a human organ sale operation. Chad media recalled the colonial days when young African boys were picked up, brought to orphanages to undergo military training and used as cannon fodder when they grew up.

Ten people, including the crew members, were allowed to leave Chad, but President Déby was determined to keep Breteau, Lelouche and four other members of the Ark in prison and try them. He later ceded to pressure from the French government which assured him that the trial would take place in Paris following a thorough investigation. On return to France the accused were released from prison under the condition that they would be available for the trial, a parole Breteau and Lelouche did not honour and escaped to South Africa where they are today in the process of seeking asylum.As the Zoé’s Ark case opened in Paris on Dec 12 this year, the French media discreetly hinted that President Idriss Déby’s official visit to France at the same time was perhaps more than just a coincidence. Chad is claiming 6.3 million euros to help alleviate the suffering of the parents who nearly lost their children five years ago.

The prosecution demanded that Breteau and Lelouche be rearrested, brought back to France and given two years of hard labour, while the defence lawyer for the couple requested leniency, pleading that though the operation was illegal it was conceived in good faith and was intended to be a humanitarian act.

Today as the tribunal is still deliberating and the whole of France is holding its breath, Belgian filmmaker Joachim Lafosse announced he was working on a movie based on the story of the ark that took a nosedive!

The writer is a journalist based in Paris.

ZafMasud@gmail.com