( CNN )- A judge sentenced six French aid workers to eight years hard labor Wednesday after convicting them of trying to kidnap 103 children in the central African country of Chad.
The judge also fined each of the six defendants to pay €60,000 ($87,000) to each of the 103 children, according the CNN Paris-based affiliate, BFM-TV.
That order would require each defendant to pay a total of €6,180,000 ($8.9 million.)
Authorities detained members of a French charity, Zoe's Ark, as they tried to fly 103 children from Chad to France.
The charity said the children were orphans who had fled the nearby war-torn Sudanese region of Darfur , but aid agencies later said the children were from Chad, not Sudan, and that they were not orphans.
The court in Chad also sentenced two people from Chad and Sudan to four years in prison. It also acquitted two citizens of Chad.
The French Foreign Ministry has asked authorities in Chad to let the six aid workers serve their sentences in France.
The French penal code does not include provisions for hard labor, so the six would spend time behind bars in France.