French president Nicolas Sarkozy is on his way to Chad today to discuss the 16 Europeans facing abduction and fraud charges for trying to fly 103 African children to Europe.
Mr Sarkozy will address the issue of the European nationals being held in Chad over accusations they illegally tried to fly the children out of Africa to families in Europe.
Nine French and seven Spanish nationals were arrested in the eastern town of Abeche, near the border with Sudan's war-torn Darfur region, just over a week ago as they tried to fly the children, aged between one and 10 years, to Europe.
Six of the French are members of a group called Zoe's Ark, which has said that it intended to place orphans from Darfur with European families for foster care and that it had the right to do so under international law. The three others are journalists.
Mr Sarkozy has made a personal appeal for the French journalists to be released and urged a mutually satisfactory solution.
Mr Sarkozy's spokesman said the meeting with president Idriss Deby would focus on consular protection of the French nationals and on judicial cooperation between France and Chad.
UN and Chadian officials say most of the infants had come from families with at least one parent living on the violent Chad-Sudan border, contradicting the war orphans description of the children given by Zoe's Ark.
Yesterday, a heavy military escort brought four members of the Spanish air crew, still in their uniforms, and three French journalists to the main law courts in N'Djamena to be questioned by the examining magistrate.
Once all the accused have been questioned, a tribunal will compare their statements before the magistrate decides whether there is sufficient evidence for a trial, a process likely to take several days.
