Kayla Mueller: What We Know About IS Hostage

Written By Unknown on Minggu, 08 Februari 2015 | 10.52

Islamic State claims US hostage Kayla Mueller has been killed in an airstrike by Jordanian jets, but what do we know about her?

The 26-year-old is an aid worker from Prescott in Arizona, a small town 100 miles north of Phoenix and from a young age had a single-minded determination to help others.

She was taken prisoner in Aleppo, Syria on 4 August 2013 after leaving a Spanish Doctors Without Borders hospital.

Ms Mueller is thought to be Islamic State's last remaining American hostage.

Other aid workers kidnapped at the same time are thought to have been released, but according to a CBS report last year, IS was demanding a $6.6m (£4.3m) ransom to set her free.

Ms Mueller had been helping Syrian refugees on the Turkish border since December 2012, working with aid agencies including Support to Life and the Danish Refugee Council.

In 2013, she described the desperate situation in a refugee camp, including how she helped reunite a six-year-old with his relative after the camp was bombed.

"For as long as I live, I will not let this suffering be normal," she told Prescott's Daily Courier.

"(I will not let this be) something we just accept."

"This story is not rare in Syria," she added. "This is the reality for Syrians two and a half years on.

"When Syrians hear I'm an American, they ask, 'Where is the world?' All I can do is cry with them, because I don't know."

Ms Mueller had also campaigned on behalf of genocide victims and volunteered for three years with the Save Darfur Coalition in her late teens.

A 2007 interview for the Daily Courier describes how she called and wrote to members of the US Congress, and took part in silent walks to raise awareness.

"I love cultures and language and learning about people's cultures," she told the paper as she prepared to start university in Flagstaff.

After graduating in 2009, she spent around a year living and working with humanitarian aid groups in northern India, Israel and Palestine.

Heading back to Arizona in 2011, she worked at an AIDS clinic and volunteered at a women's shelter at night.

The US government and Ms Mueller's family had kept her name secret until IS claimed she had been killed, fearing any publicity would put her in more danger.

Her parents, Carl and Marsha Mueller, said in a statement on Friday: "Kayla found this (aid) work heart-breaking but compelling; she is extremely devoted to the people of Syria.

"When asked what kept her going in her mission, she said, 'I find God in the suffering eyes reflected in mine, if this is how you are revealed to me, this is how I will forever seek you.'"

If her death is confirmed she would be the fourth American to die while being held by IS.

The others, journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, and aid worker Peter Kassig were beheaded by the group.


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