WRAPUP 3-French, Spanish charged over Chad children flight

(Adds comments from U.N., Chadian crowd, media watchdog)

By Stephanie Hancock

ABECHE, Chad, Oct 30 (Reuters) - Chad's authorities brought abduction and fraud charges on Tuesday against nine French and seven Spanish nationals they accused of illegally trying to fly 103 African children to Europe.

A Chadian prosecutor said the French, members of a group called Zoe's Ark which said it wanted to place orphans from Sudan's war-torn Darfur with European families, faced five to 20 years hard labour if convicted in the landlocked African state.

The French group has denied wrongdoing. But United Nations and French officials said it appeared many of the children, aged three to 10 years old, were from Chad and many were not orphans.

Despite the embarrassment caused by the case, France said it did not expect its longstanding ties with its former colony to be hurt. Paris has troops stationed in Chad and will provide roughly half of a European Union peacekeeping force to be deployed shortly in Chad's violent eastern region.

The children were now being looked after at an orphanage in the eastern Chadian town of Abeche by U.N. children's agency (UNHCR) officials who had brought them food and games.

"Investigators are working to determine where the children are from and whether they have any living relatives," U.N. spokeswoman Marie Okabe said in New York.

Seven Spanish crew members of the plane chartered for the operation were charged as accessories, along with two Chadians.