Yusuf Zahab

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Yusuf Zahab is an Australian people|Australian youth, who was taken to what was then daesh controlled Syria, when he was just eleven years old.^[1][2][3][4] He was reported to have died of wounds in early 2022, but a video from him subsequently emerged, in the summer of 2023.^[5][6]

When the last Daesh enclave collapsed many of the foreign volunteers who had gone to fight for ideological reasons had died in battle, but their wives and children were confined to refugee camps, under harsh conditions.^[1] Some of those wives remain ideologically committed to the Daesh cause. Others claim they were never committed to Daesh and had been tricked or coerced into following their husbands. Still others acknowledge willingly travelling to the enclave, but only to quickly have become disillusioned, and finding themselves unable to leave.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that Zahab was transferred to the Gweiran prison three years ago.^[1] They reported he was able to get voice messages to his family, in January 2022, saying the prison was under attack, and requesting help to leave the prison.^[7] He said he had suffered a head wound. He hasn't been heard from since, and he is believed to have been died.

He was believed to have earlier acquired tuberculosis in the over-crowded and unsanitary condition in the al-Sina’a prison.^[2] Al-Sina is run by a de facto independently run quasi state of Kurdish people|Kurds in a region claimed by embattled Syria.

The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights|United Nations High Commissioner on Human Rights issued a press release following reports of Zahab's death.^[8] The press release noted that Zahab's detention had not been subject to any judicial review, and that the conditions under which he had been detained constituted torture. It noted that the Commission had made repeated call for Australia to make greater efforts to repatriate its citizens.

Australian human rights workers fear that other teenage refugees may be transferred from the dangerous refugee camps to Syria's still more dangerous prisons for adult men.^[1] Syrian authorities transfer boys to adult prison when they are as young as twelve years old.^[9]

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation reported that human rights workers believe at least forty other Australian children remain caught in Syria.^[7]

The Guardian reports that, during the IS attack on the prison, IS fighters used children as human shields.^[10]

In August of 2023, that is, just over a year after the Daesh attack on the al-Sina’a prison where Zahab was being held, and where he was believed to have been killed, it was reported that a video of him, dated September 15, 2022 has emerged.^[5][6] The youth in the video names himself, and his parents.

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