Thousands of people; men, women, and children linked to ISIS are left in detention in northeast Syria.

An Australian teenage inside a Syrian prison at the centre of intense fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish-led forces has reached out to his family via a audio recordings in which he begs for help.

The Australian teen, who the ABC cannot identify, said he suffered a head wound as gunfire and explosions rattled around him.

“I’m Australian,” he repeated urgently in audio clips he recorded on a phone.

“I’m scared I might die any time.”

The 17-year-old has spent the last three years inside the Guweiran prison in the Syrian town of Hasakah, in the country’s north-east.

Kurdish-led forces, with US military support, have since fought back to try and reassert control of the prison and the surrounding area.

‘I don’t know what to do’

Caught in the chaos of the attack, the Australian boy has sent a handful of short voice recordings to his family in Sydney, describing the terror of the last few days.

“They’re not stopping shooting,” he said in an Australian accent.

“Every little bit, they shoot. Every little bit they’re hitting missiles. I don’t know what to do.”

In another recording, he described the bodies of those killed in the attack lying in front of him.

“People are screaming next to me. People are scared. I really need help. I really want to come back home.”

The Australian boy’s voice recordings, obtained exclusively by the ABC, give a glimpse into one of the boldest attacks by Islamic State militants since the group lost most of its territory in Syria in 2019.

The audio messages were sent to the boy’s family in Sydney via a messaging app, and were shared with a family friend, Kamalle Dabboussy, who has been campaigning for the boy to be brought back to Australia.

“Over the last 24 hours in particular, it’s been a huge shock to the family,” Mr Dabboussy said.

None of the teenager’s extended family have had any direct contact with the boy since he was detained three years ago.

“Before he left, he was a really happy child,” Mr Dabboussy said.

“He’d actually quite like the big brother role, playing with younger kids around the place. He was just a normal suburban kid.”

How did he end up in Syria?

It’s understood the boy has been in Syria since 2015, when he travelled to the newly declared Islamic State caliphate with his parents and siblings.

He would have been about 11 years old when he was taken from Australia.

His mother is reportedly still alive and in the makeshift Roj detention camp, a couple of hours drive away from the prison, though the two are not in regular contact.

Following the liberation of the last Islamic State stronghold of Baghouz in 2019, he and his mother were transferred to a camp in north-east Syria, before they were separated and the boy was taken to prison.

He has remained there ever since with little or no hope of survival.

In February and March 2021, Human Rights Watch communicated via text, email, or phone with eight foreign women detained in camps for family members of male ISIS suspects in northeast Syria as well as relatives of five camp detainees. Human Rights Watch also spoke or emailed with members of six aid organizations and six civil society groups pressing for the detainees’ repatriations, as well as regional authorities, Western government officials, UN officials, journalists, and academics. In addition, Human Rights Watch reviewed dozens of reports, media articles, and videos about the camps and prisons.

We hope the Australian government intervenes on the teenager’s behalf.