The Australian family of Sydney schoolboy Yusuf Zahab have spoken of their devastation at the loss of the boy who was taken to Syria by his radicalised brothers when he was 11, and locked up indefinitely when he was 14.

Yusuf was one of about 12 Australians jailed by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces following the fall of Islamic State in the village of Baghouz in March 2019. Another 60 women and children are held in secure camps.

He has been missing since Islamic State attacked the al-Sina’a prison in the city of Hasakah in January.

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Yusuf, who was detained with Sydney man Hamza Elbaf, recorded several panicked audio clips as 300 militants attacked the prison, and had not been heard from since.

Elbaf’s whereabouts are unknown. The Australian understands Kurdish and Australian authorities believe Yusuf is dead.

His father, Hicham Zahab, also died in jail at Hasakah from illness, likely tuberculosis. He was wanted in Australia on allegations of financially supporting Islamic State.

Another of Hicham’s sons, Muhammad Zahab, was a notorious Islamic State recruiter who lured more than a dozen of his family members to Syria before he was killed in an airstrike.

Yusuf was never accused of any crime.

In a statement, the Sydney-based Zahab family said they were “heartbroken and angry because Yusuf didn’t need to die”.

“Yusuf grew up like any other Australian kid in southwest Sydney – going to school, playing with his cousins and enjoying sport on the weekends,” the family said. “He was a happy child who showed care and compassion to those around him.

“Even in the final messages we received from Yusuf, he asked us to tell his mum that he loved and missed her.’’

The news of Yusuf’s apparent death comes less than a month after The Australian interviewed his mother, Aminah, in the al-Roj camp in northeast Syria, where she is being held as part of a group of 16 Australian women and 42 children.

Ms Zahab, who has numerous relatives including 11 grandchildren detained in al-Roj, wept as she pleaded for news of her son.

She last heard Yusuf’s voice in January on audio clips he smuggled out of the jail as IS militants attacked the al-Sina’a prison in Hasakah’s Guweiran district.

The militants attacked the jail with a truck bomb and weapons in an 11-day assault that killed about 500 people.

“I’m Australian … I’m scared I might die at any time,” Yusuf was heard saying.

“My name is Yusuf Hicham Zahab … I need help … It’s very hard here, I’m very scared.

“I saw a lot of bodies of kids, eight years, 10 years, 12 years. My friends got killed here.

“I’m very scared, I’m by myself, there’s a lot of people dead, a lot of people injured, people are screaming next to me.’’

He also said he had been shot, and had a head injury.

His family and humanitarian groups were then unable to locate him.

The UN Special Rapporteur considered him among about 100 “lost boys” who had vanished in the vast prison system that holds more than 5000 men linked to Islamic State.

In their statement on Sunday, his family said the “terror in his voice was palpable”.

“He had suffered severe injuries and he knew he could die at any moment,” the family said.

“The previous Australian government knew about Yusuf’s predicament for more than three years. We are unaware of any efforts to support, care or inquire about him. Other Australian children will also die unless immediate action is taken.”

The Zahab family said other Australian boys in the camp were nearing the age of 12, when they would be separated from their mothers, as Yusuf was. They pleaded with the Albanese government to repatriate the group of women and children from Syria “before another life is lost”.

“I’m really worried that he might be tortured,” Ms Zahab said. “I heard that he had TB (tuberculosis) and was really sick. He was taken away from me (at) Baghouz; he was taken away, separated with adults.

“I’ve never seen him since.”

Hicham Zahab had claimed he took his family to Syria to rescue his brainwashed sons who had joined the caliphate. He claimed he also tried to rescue his many grandchildren, and had worked only as a mechanic.

The Australian Federal Police used proceeds of crime legislation against him over the sale of the family home in western Sydney’s Condell Park in 2015, fearing the money was being used to support terrorism. About $500,000 in sale proceeds was never recovered and police alleged it was destined for Islamic State.

Prosecutors in Kuwait also filed charges against him in 2016 alleging he was supporting and financing terrorism, money-laundering and illegally transferring cash from Australia to Kuwait.

“The last we heard from him was January,” Ms Zahab said of her youngest son, Yusuf.

“So many organisations have been sent to see him (but) they refused to let anybody in. I’ve been worried sick.”

Yusuf’s sister, who is also in al-Roj with her mother, said the family heard Yusuf’s pleas for help when they were broadcast on news channels in Syria.

“I heard him, he was pleading to go back home,” she said.

“The last thing we heard about him was he was injured.

“We don’t know anything since then … no one has been able to ¬locate him at all.

“Yusuf told family back home that ASIO had met with him a few months after he got there, and he told them he wanted to go back home. And they told him they’re coming back for him. And they never did.

“He’s even told family he’s been tortured. He told ASIO he’d been in solitary confinement and he wasn’t doing well and the conditions of the prison were horrific.

“He’s in a men’s prison and they did nothing about it.”

His sister, who asked not to be named, said she just wanted to see him one more time.

“Just once. That hug. He is a victim.”