Manama: Two Saudi women who tried to sneak into Yemen and smuggle in six children with them in order to join a terror group have been sentenced to 13 and 11 years in prison.

The Saudi court also sentenced 10 people involved in the smuggling attempt to a total of 46 years and seven months based on several charges related to supporting and funding terrorism, trying to take children to another country without the knowledge of their parents, forgery and illicit relations, Saudi daily Al Watan reported on Thursday.

The two women, Mai Al Talq and Ameena Al Rashid, in their 30s, were arrested in April 2014 alongside 62 terror suspects as they attempted to sneak into Yemen where they were supposed to join Al Qaida.

The six children are all Saudi nationals, the oldest of them being 14. They were accompanied by three Yemeni men who were leading them through desolate areas and dangerous mountains east of Jazan to cross the borders illegally before they were intercepted.

According a Saudi report, the group was around 400 metres from the Yemeni side when they were arrested at around 9pm by a border patrol.

The servicemen, who were taken aback by the presence of two Saudi women and six children in the inhospitable area, referred them to the security authorities. Initial confessions by the adults in the group confirmed that the children had been kidnapped and that the women were intent on joining Al Qaida and had taken along the children.

“I had the shock of my life when I got a phone call informing me that my nephew had been found with other children and two women as they were being smuggled out of the kingdom to join the ranks of Al Qaida,” Abu Saleh, the uncle of one of the children, said. “What will they do in Yemen? Will they target US drones or look after Al Qaida logistics? How could they decide to go to Yemen without telling their families? How could they participate in kidnapping and smuggling out children? Everyone is deeply shocked that two women dared to do that and claimed they wanted to join Al Qaida in Yemen.”

A private plane carrying relatives of the women and the children as well as religious scholars and human rights activists were dispatched by the interior minister to Jazan in the south of Saudi Arabia.

“I still had doubts about what happened until we saw the women and the poor children, who were not even aware of where they were being taken to or what was happening to them,” Abu Saleh said. “I have never seen such a deviant mind and blatant ignorance. I could not believe that someone who claimed he was going to a holy war would kidnap innocent children to use them. I wanted the women to tell me what they would be doing with Al Qaida in Yemen when their husbands and families were in Braida in Saudi Arabia.”

One of the women reportedly said that she did not know when her husband, who had been arrested in a case of terrorism, would be freed from jail.

“We decided to go to Yemen after they told us that the situation there was excellent,” she said. “We did not expect it to be so difficult.”

News of the arrest focused attention on the increasing use of women by terror groups for field operations and the recruitment of young people.

The Saudi-Yemen border is about 1,800 kilometres long and vast stretches along the frontier are characterised by severe weather conditions. It is often used by Africans fleeing the perils of the Horn of Africa to reach Saudi Arabia, lured by promises of lucrative work opportunities and better living conditions. The movement of people out of the Horn of Africa is often described by UN experts as one of the largest flows of economic refugees on earth.