Tunisian president honors Algerian resistance icon

TUNIS, Algeria

Tunisian President Kais Saied honored Algerian legendary nationalist Djamila Bouhired on Thursday, the Tunisian presidency said in a statement.

Saied "received on Wednesday at the Palace of Carthage the great militant Djamila Bouhired, one of the most important symbols of the Algerian revolution," according to the statement.

Saied "granted Bouhired the first degree of the Order of the Republic of Tunisia in appreciation of her standing and long struggle for the liberation of Algeria from French colonialism and her continuous struggle in defense of freedoms," it added.

Bouhired was born in 1935 in Algiers. In 1954, she joined the Algerian National Liberation Front and took up arms to fight the French colonialism that got her arrested in 1957 and she was severely tortured and sentenced to jail.

*Bassel Ibrahim contributed to this report from Ankara