Yusuf Zahab: Australian teen feared killed in Syrian jail

An Australian teenager taken to Syria as a child is feared dead after languishing in an adult prison for three years.

Yusuf Zahab has been 11 years old whenever he was taken to Syria in 2015 by relatives who was simply radicalised. He had been imprisoned without charge within 2019.

His Sydney-based family say they may be “heartbroken and angry” because the 17-year-old had begged for help for years.

Australia provides previously said it is too dangerous to repatriate its residents.

It is unclear precisely when or just how Yusuf is thought to have died. Legal rights groups say he was injured within January when the Islamic State group bombarded a prison within Syria’s north-east in the bid to totally free its fighters.

Kurdish-led forces, with US assistance, battled the militants for a week, making more than 180 people dead.

At the time, Yusuf told family in voice recordings he was scared this individual “might die any kind of time” as battling intensified.

[M]y friends got killed in front of me personally, a 14 year old, a 15 yr old, ” he stated in a video obtained by Human Rights Watch.

“I dropped a lot of blood… There’s no doctors here, there’s no one who can help myself. ”

Yusuf has been among around 850 children who had been jailed at the prison after the fall of IS in 2019 in case these people posed a risk, the UN little one’s charity Unicef mentioned.

His family explained him as a joyful and compassionate child who loved sport, school and having fun with his cousins.

“Even in the final messages we obtained from Yusuf, he or she asked us to inform his mum which he loved and missed her, ” they said in a statement.

“Yusuf didn’t need to pass away. ”

They said Australia’s previous federal government “knew about Yusuf’s predicament for more than three years” prior to being leaving office in May, adding: “We are unaware of any efforts to support, care or even inquire about him. ”

The family plus advocacy groups Human being Rights Watch plus Save the Children have got pleaded for Australia to repatriate women and children who remain in Syria.

Quotes evacuated eight orphans in 2019 , but at least 63 Australians remain stuck in Syria. Of them, up to 40 are usually children, the groupings say.

“We need to remember these children were brought generally there against their can or were born over there, ” Human Rights Watch’s Sophie McNeill informed the ABC.

Australia’s government and Division of Foreign Affairs and Trade are actually contacted for opinion.