Eight women repatriated from Syria charged at home
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France brought back home 16 women from Syria, in a move it had long ruled out.
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Al-Hol camp in northeast Syria (AFP)
Eight women, who were repatriated on Tuesday to France from camps and prisons for militants in Syria, were charged with criminal terrorist association in Paris, a judicial source reported.
Several women have been accused of abandoning minors, the same source said, while an 18-year-old teenager charged with the same crime has been placed under judicial control.
The women are among a group of 35 minors and 16 women repatriated to France from prison camps in northeastern Syria.
This marks the first repatriation of children of suspected militants and their mothers since the 2019 fall of the ISIS "caliphate" in Syria.
Only a small group of minors have been transferred to France so far, according to "case-by-case" procedures.
The group of 16 women aged between 22 and 39 includes Emilie Konig, one of the most notorious French terrorists. She left for Syria a decade ago in 2012, and she is facing accusations of having been a "recruiter" for ISIS.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) revealed a year ago that hundreds of children were incarcerated in prisons for adults in Northeast Syria.
These children, most of which are boys, were transferred from Al-Hol, a desert camp run by Syrian Kurdish militias for 60,000 people from more than 60 countries, due to their ties to ISIS militants.
Ahead of the latest repatriation came the detention of 120 women, and almost 290 minors were detained in Syrian camps controlled by Kurdish militias.
