(AFP) France on Tuesday repatriated three women and 10 children from Syrian camps housing alleged jihadists, anti-terror prosecutors said, in the first such operation in two years.
Repatriation is a deeply sensitive issue in France, which has been a target of Islamists over the past decade, notably in 2015, when jihadist gunmen and suicide bombers staged the worst attack on Paris since World War II, killing 130 people.
More than five years after the Islamic State group’s territorial defeat in Iraq and Syria, tens of thousands of people are still held in Kurdish-run camps and prisons in northeastern Syria, many with alleged or perceived links to IS.
The women repatriated early Tuesday morning are aged between 18 and 34.
