Charges have been brought against them. On Sunday October 23, ten women who had returned from Syria earlier in the week were charged with terrorism, Europe 1 reports. The women, who were wanted on arrest warrants, had been taken into police custody on their arrival on French soil on the night of October 19-20 at the premises of the Directorate-General for Internal Security (DGSI). One of them was also charged with crimes against humanity and genocide. Some have also been charged with deprivation of parental duties, endangering the health or safety of the child. Another 19-year-old woman, who had been taken to the Iraqi-Syrian zone as a child, was “under educational care, as there has been no indication so far that charges should be brought against her”.
All of them had been taken home on Wednesday night, along with three other women for whom an arrest warrant had been issued, where they were charged and detained on Thursday. They had been captured in areas in north-eastern Syria and northern Iraq occupied by the Islamic State (IS) terrorist militia until 2019 and had been placed in camps controlled by Kurds.
This is the second major repatriation operation in three months: On July 5, France had repatriated 16 mothers and 35 minors. In the meantime, a woman and her two children had been repatriated at the beginning of October. In the hours following this second repatriation operation, government spokesman Olivier Véran had told the LCI channel that there would still be “some mass repatriations” and that “this will be done gradually”.