The image of a benevolent West has taken a battering in Africa this week, as 103 children earmarked for care by French families were airlifted from a border settlement between Chad and Sudan on a flight bound for France.
At the other end of the journey were more than 300 French families who had paid between $2,900 and $8,500 each to French charity Zoe's Ark. They were expected to have children placed with them (Zoe's Ark have shyed away from using the term adoption) and were eagerly awaiting the arrival of the children for whom they had brought winter clothes and decorated spare bedrooms.
But the children never arrived in France. Instead they remain in Chad, while those associated with their removal (including aid workers, journalists and pilots) sit in a Chad jail, waiting charges of kidnapping and extortion. 
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All About Chad
