Chad demand for damages rejected

France rejected a demand by Chad that it pay more than $8 million in compensation to the families of 103 children kidnapped by French aid workers.

The African nation said France was liable for the court-ordered damages, because it requested the repatriation of the six members of a charity called Zoe’s Ark last year. The workers were released in March from French jails after being pardoned by Chad’s president.

Chadian authorities arrested the aid workers in October 2007 as they sought to put the children on a plane to France, claiming they were orphans from Sudan’s Darfur region, which borders Chad.