A 17-year-old Australian inside a Syrian prison at the centre of intense fighting between Islamic State militants and Kurdish-led forces has sent his family audio recordings in which he begs for help.
Islamic State (IS) fighters have besieged the prison since January 20 in an attempt to free some of the thousands of IS members held inside.
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.
The militants breached a wall near the gates of the prison, where roughly 5,000 men and 700 boys are detained, by detonating a car bomb and killing dozens of staff, allowing inmates to flee.
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.
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.
They 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.
Inside the prison, conditions are poor, with overcrowding, inadequate healthcare, and deteriorating mental health among the detained children, one humanitarian worker who visited the site last year said.
At least 40 Australian children remain in detention of some form across the north-east of Syria, according to the organisation Save the Children.
"What we know is that there are a large number of Australian women and children who were caught up in a conflict with [IS] that ended back in 2019," said Mat Tinkler, Save the Children's acting chief executive.
"Many of the male relatives of these women and children either died during the conflict or have been imprisoned."
Mr Tinkler said his organisation had made repeated appeals to the Australian federal government to intervene to have Australian children imprisoned in Syria returned home to their families.
"But that plea unfortunately has fallen on deaf ears and the Australian government has refused to act for several years now," he said.
Mr Dabboussy also said the government had taken too long to act.
"They're acutely aware of the situation and have chosen to sit on their hands and not do anything," Mr Dabboussy said.
The Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne said she was seeking advice about the matter.
"Australia does not have diplomatic representation in Syria," she said.
"We have been very clear about the challenges of Australian citizens who have found themselves in that part of the world, having either gone there, or been the children of parents who chose to go there."
