Zoe's Ark workers sentenced to hard labor

NDJAMENA, Chad, Dec. 26 (UPI) -- Six workers from the French charity Zoe's Ark have been sentenced to eight years of forced labor in Chad as part of a controversial child-trafficking case.

While the charity has maintained that it was simply attempting evacuate refugee children from Chad in October, the six charity workers were accused of kidnapping and were found guilty after just four days in court, the BBC said Wednesday.

After the charity workers were arrested attempting to transport the children to Europe, it was discovered that most still had parents and were not orphans as the charity had previously claimed.

The charity workers' trial took place in Chad following a spate of protests across the country focused on a demand for justice in the unusual case.

The BBC said those protesters alleged that if the workers were treated leniently by the country's court system, it would be due to the fact they were European.