Detained Australian teenager dies in northeast Syria: HRW

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Yusuf Zahab, an imprisoned Australian teenager who would have turned 18 in April, has died in northeast Syria, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said in a report on Monday.

Zahab was one of the 700 Syrian and foreign boys detained in Al-Sina'a prison in Hasakah city taken hostage by ISIS during the group's attack on the al-Sina'a prison in January.

Read More: US-led coalition says SDF cleared Hasakah prison from enemy fighters

He was born in southwest Sydney, Australia. At aged 11, “relatives took him to Turkey on a pretext by his adult brother, who then forced teh family to cross into Syria,” HRW said.

In 2019, Zahab was among family members arrested by the SDF.

"For several years, the family had begged the Australian government to repatriate Yusuf Zahab, who was last heard from when he sent desperate pleas for help during an ISIS siege of Al-Sina'a prison in al-Hasakah city in January 2022," read the report.

An Australian government official told the family on July 17 that Zahab had died from uncertain causes.

The family told HRW that Zahab had caught tuberculosis in the overcrowded, makeshift prison run by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

In January 2022, Zahab suffered injuries in his head and arm during the battle to retake the prison from ISIS. 

Letta Tayler, associate crisis and conflict director at Human Rights Watch, said his death "should prompt these countries to urgently bring their detained citizens home."

The report added that Australia has only repatriated eight citizens, all unaccompanied children in 2019.

The SDF holds an estimated 69-80 Australian nationals, including 19 women and 29 children.

The SDF holds more than 41,000 foreigners in camps and prisons from dozens of countries. 

The SDF and the Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES) have repeatedly called on foreign countries to repatriate their third country nationals.

"The threat which we all know is that ISIS views the detention facilities where its fighters are housed as the population to reconstitute its army," said Dana Stroul, the US Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for the Middle East, during a seminar on July 13 at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. 

"And [ISIS] looks at al-Hol and al-Roj, and the youth in those camps, as the next generation of ISIS."

Stroul said the US-led coalition is making newly US-funded detention facilities that "will also help enable critical US stabilization priorities, ensuring detainee access to medical care, providing youth detainees with distinct programming and facilities to address their safety and rehabilitation."

During a press conference on Friday, SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi warned that intelligence reports suggest that ISIS is planning to attack the al-Hol camp, which hosts thousands of ISIS families. 

This threat comes amidst Turkey's repeated warnings that it will attack the SDF in northern Syria.

"So any attack by the Turkish occupation will undermine the war against ISIS," Abdi added.