DAKAR, 8 November 2007 (IRIN) - Surrounded by the 103 African children caught up in an alleged abduction plot by a French charity, Chadian president Idriss Déby appeared before photographers and journalists from around the world, standing up for the rights of Chadian children.

"These people treat us like animals," he said of the members of the association L'Arche de Zoé (Zoé's Ark). Chadian authorities arrested 17 Europeans, charging many with abduction of minors after they tried to take children they claimed were Sudanese orphans to host families in France.

L'Arche de Zoé said they were saving the children from "certain death" in the war-torn Darfur region of Sudan.

According to aid agencies most of the 103 children are not orphans nor do they come from Darfur, yet aid officials are also quick to point out that the humanitarian situation is dire for millions of children in Chad.

Under Déby's rule, one in five children die before the age of five, 40 percent do not go to school, and thousands have been recruited as child soldiers.

"There are significant concerns regarding systematic infringements of the most fundamental rights of children," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon said in a July report.

The statements by President Déby and other Chadian officials about L'Arche de Zoé's treatment of children are hypocritical according many aid workers including Chad researcher for Human Rights Watch (HRW), David Buchbinder. "It's hard to take them seriously when they talk about children's welfare, when they're definitely not protecting children the way they should," he said.

Child Soldiers

According to a HRW report issued in July, thousands of children under the age of 18 had been recruited into the Chadian army to serve as fighters, guards, cooks and lookouts on the frontlines of the conflict. UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) says about 7,000 children, some as young as 8 years old, have been used by rebels or armed groups.

In May, the Chadian government signed an agreement with UNICEF to demobilize child soldiers throughout the country. But Buchbinder, author of the HRW report, said that in August he witnessed "very clear, open use of children in regular Chadian government military, which is a violation of the spirit and letter of the agreement with UNICEF to demobilize, let alone international law."

The government says that any children in the Chadian army were recruited by rebel movements who have since been integrated into the government.

Both the UN and HRW dispute that claim.


Quality of life

Children's lives are being threatened all across Chad but particularly in the east near the border with Darfur, where L'Arche de Zoé allegedly took the 103 children. They live amongst armed conflict between the government and rebel groups, cross-border raids by militias from neighbouring Sudan, and inter-ethnic violence.

Many lack access to food, water and healthcare.

"Children