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Les victimes se sont souvent évanouies pendant le braquage.

Les victimes se sont souvent évanouies pendant le braquage.
The victims often fainted during the heist.
From Lesson 449:Essentially pronominal verbs·French

Questions & Answers about Les victimes se sont souvent évanouies pendant le braquage.

Why is there an -es on évanouies?
S'évanouir (to faint) is an essentially pronominal verb, meaning it only exists with a reflexive pronoun like se. In the passé composé, the past participle of these verbs always agrees with the subject. Since les victimes is a feminine plural noun, we add -es to make évanouies.
Wait, does the -es mean all the victims were female?
Not necessarily! The noun une victime is always feminine in French, regardless of the person's actual gender. The verb agrees with the grammatical gender of the word victimes, so it takes the feminine plural form even if the victims were a group of men.
Could I use the verb without se, for example to say the heist made the victims faint?
No, you can't. Because s'évanouir is essentially pronominal, the non-reflexive version (évanouir) does not exist in modern French. You cannot 'évanouir' someone. To say something made someone faint, you have to use a causative structure like faire évanouir.
Why is souvent placed right in the middle of the verb?
In the passé composé, short and common adverbs like souvent (often), toujours (always), and déjà (already) are placed between the auxiliary verb (sont) and the past participle (évanouies). Longer adverbs of time or manner usually go after the past participle.

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