PARIS, Sept. 24 (Xinhua) -- France has brought home two French mothers and their nine children from families that had fought with Islamic State (IS) insurgents in Syria, local media reported on Tuesday.
The children, aged between 3 and 13 years, reached French soil early on Tuesday. They were scheduled to receive medical and psychological treatment before being handed over to the judicial authorities to decide whether their grandparents are able to look after them, France Inter radio reported.
Arrested at the Turkish border, the two mothers were placed under police custody on suspicion of belonging to the Islamic State (IS). One of them was believed to be the niece of the brothers Fabien and Jean-Michel Clain, France's most wanted jihadists, who narrated an audio recording claiming responsibility for the Nov. 13, 2015 terror attacks in Paris, which killed 130 people in coordinated attacks and explosions.
France has already received 12 children, most of them are younger than five years of age, from northeastern Syria, where 130 others are still reportedly held in refugee camps.
France had previously expressed preference for their citizens held in Iraq and Syria and who fought with the Islamic State to be prosecuted there on fears of growing militancy at home.
Meanwhile, Paris has also pledged to examine the cases of the minors individually, fearing that they could eventually also become militants.
