Zoé's Ark

Zoé's Ark   (NGO, France/VIPaedophile?)
Formation	2004
Headquarters	France
French charity organization which kidnapped 103 children in Africa for murky purposes. Ties to the family of President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Zoé's Ark (French: L'Arche de Zoé) was a French charity organization with the stated aim of increasing awareness of the crisis in Darfur and providing aid for children affected by the conflict. The organization was brought into the public's awareness in 2007 with the arrest of six members and 11 others in Abéché, Chad for attempting to abductt 103 African children by charter plane.

Chadian President Idriss Deby demanded stiff penalties, and suggested the children could have ended up being sold to a pedophile ring or used to supply human organs or for medical research.

Official narrative

Zoé's Ark was formed "by motoring enthusiasts from the French four-wheel-drive community to aid victims of the December 2004 Asian tsunami". More specifically, Zoé's Ark was founded in 2005 by volunteer fireman Éric Breteau, former president of the French 4x4 Federation, who named it after a girl orphaned by the December 2004 Asian tsunami. The group, registered as a non-governmental organization with the French authorities, sought to aid children affected by the tsunami, and brought one boy to France for an operation.

Lured with candy

On October 25, 2007, several volunteers and officials of the association, who were accompanying a group of 103 children about to leave Chad, were arrested by the country's authorities. Zoe's Ark planned to fly the African children aged 1-10 out of Chad to Europe in a Boeing 757 airliner chartered from Girjet.

Later, other NGOs determined that the children were not from Darfur, but in fact Chadian and had been lured away from home with candy. Some children said that their parents were still alive and that they were taken from their villages on the Chad-Sudan border.

My parents had gone to work in the fields. As we were playing some Chadians came and said, 'Here are some sweets, why don't you follow us to Adre and then we'll take you home?' " said a young boy who gave his name as Osman. "We were taken to the hospital in Adre," a town on the Chad-Sudan border.

Mariam, a 10-year-old who was one of the group along with her younger sister, said that their mother was dead but that their father was still alive. "A car came with two whites and one black man who spoke Arabic. The driver said, 'Come with me, I'll give you some money and biscuits and then I'll take you home,' " she said. "We were taken to the white people's house and they gave us medicine - small white tablets," Mariam said. "I was not ill. All the children were given pills. They told us that we would no longer be able to go home."

The interference of the Sarkozy family

French President Nicolas Sarkozy intervened heavily after the arrests in order to get them back to France. "I will go and find those who remain no matter what they have done."

The Spanish air charter company Girjet, offered its services after receiving emails indicating the abortive operation was being organized by the U.N. refugee agency UNHCR and also had the blessing of French President Nicolas Sarkozy's wife Cecilia.

Emails were sent in English to Girjet in October by a Luxembourg-based air freight hire company, Cargo Leasing S.A., which was acting on behalf of Zoe's Ark. "Please advise price quote for the transportation of 180 passengers of the UNHCR organization from ABECHE (TCHAD) to MARSEILLE," read one email. Another said: "Really need your full cooperation in that business which is considered as Humanitarian flight on behalf of a French committee headed and supported by Mme Cecilia S". "It's clear they wanted to give the impression that the French Presidency was aware of the Zoe's Ark mission," the legal source told Reuters.

The role of the younger brother of the French head of state, pediatrician François Sarkozy, is also questioned. On October 26, 2007, the French justice carried out a search at the headquarters of Zoé's Arch, which was also the Parisian residence of Jean-François Dhainaut who is the father of Stéphanie Dhainaut-Lefebvre, treasurer then secretary general of the NGO, and deputy director of Paris Biotech Santé, a biopharmaceutical company.

In a letter addressed to the French president dated December 30, Chadian deputy Ngarlejy Yorongar pointed out that the secretary of Zoé's Ark, Stéphanie Dhainaut-Lefebvre, is the director of Paris Biotech Santé, a biopharmaceutical company of which François Sarkozy is part as a member of the evaluation committee. François Sarkozy is also vice-chairman of the supervisory board of Bio Alliance Pharma, an “innovative biopharmaceutical company, specializing in the development and commercialization of new therapeutic products focused on cancer, serious infections (HIV).

At first, Paris Biotech Santé denied any link with Zoé's Arch other than the dual function of Stéphanie Lefebvre. Subsequently, a letter of intent was made public reporting direct funding from Paris Biotech to the NGO since the tsunami operation in South West Asia.

Trial

Members of the group were sentenced to hard labour in Chad, but were returned to France on condition that they would face trial.

The group’s founder, Eric Breateau, and his partner, Emilie Lelouch, then moved to South Africa. Since they did not show up in court, it allowed the others to put all the blame on them. In the French trial, the lawyer of one of the four accused described Breteau as almost a cult leader: he "had all the attributes of a guru, faced with people who were completely devoted to him. And unfortunately they found themselves involved with an operation that ended in disaster. In my opinion, this was a sect".

On February 12, 2013, Éric Breteau and Émilie Lelouch, present only on the day of the judgement, were sentenced by the Paris Criminal Court to three years in prison and a fine of €50,000. Zoé's Ark was dissolved. In April 2013, the courts accepted the release of Eric Breteau and Émilie Lelouch under judicial supervision, pending their appeal trial. On February 14, 2014, the Court of Appeal acquitted the association's logistician, Alain Péligat, and still found Breteau and Lelouch guilty, but reducing their sentences to two years' imprisonment, with a simple suspension, and the fine of € 50,000. Éric Breteau and Émilie Lelouch lodged an appeal which was dismissed on February 17, 2016, rendering their conviction final.

Darfur

At the time France and the EU had deployed troops in Chad, officially "to protect 400,000 Sudanese and Chadian refugees who have fled violence spilling over from the Sudanese region of Darfur," where a CIA-supported rebellion was in progress.

Many thanks to our Patrons who cover ~2/3 of our hosting bill. Please join them if you can.