France returned 35 minors and 16 mothers who lived in terrorist camps in Syria after the fall of ISIS, including one of the most famous French jihadists, Emily Koenig, who gave hope to NGOs and families to stop the “inhuman” policies, based on “consideration of each case separately”.

Hours after the formation of the new French government, the Foreign Ministry said in a statement: “Today, France returned to national territory 35 French minors who were in camps in northeast Syria. This process also includes the return of 16 mothers from the same camps,” noting that the mothers have been handed over to the judicial authorities. Minors are transferred to children’s institutions.

This is the first mass repatriation of children and mothers to France since the fall of 2019 and the fall of the “caliphate state”, from which bloody terrorist attacks were planned in France on November 13, 2015, and the trial finally ended.

The National Counterterrorism Prosecutor’s Office said seven of the 35 minors were unaccompanied. As for the sixteen women aged 22 to 39, “four of them agreed to return their children in recent months” and “12 returned with their children.”

In his statement, he added that all these women have French citizenship, “with the exception of two children who are French.”

The Office said that eight of the women who returned were placed in pre-trial detention “in pursuance of a search and investigation warrant” issued against them, while a source familiar with the investigation stated that seven other women were being held under “arrest warrants.” issued against them on charges of creating a criminal terrorist group.

Among the women, Emily Koenig, 37, is French and moved to Syria in 2012. There are suspicions that she recruited people, in particular, to replenish the ranks of the ISIS organization.