The remarkable activism and tragic death of Kayla Mueller

• The parents of Kayla Mueller — an American aid worker held captive by ISIS — have confirmed that she has died.
  [NYT / Rukmini Callimachi and Eric Schmitt]

• Days earlier, ISIS had claimed Mueller died in a Jordanian airstrike. This is as yet unconfirmed, and ISIS has a record of lying about hostages and their fates.
  [Vox / Amanda Taub]

• Mueller had worked with Syrian refugees through the Danish Relief Council and the aid group Support for Life.
  [The Guardian / Jessica Glenza]

• She had traveled and volunteered for years in India and Israel, where she engaged in anti-occupation activism and worked to support African refugees in Tel Aviv.
  [Haaretz / Danna Harmon]

• She spoke about her work with Syrian refugees to a community organization in her hometown of Prescott, AZ: "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."
  [The Daily Courier / Lisa Irish]

• Mueller's family released an absolutely devastating letter she had sent last year from captivity: "If you could say I have 'suffered' at all throughout this whole experience it is only in knowing how much suffering I have put you all through."
  [Vox / Zack Beauchamp]

• US special forces made a rescue attempt for Mueller and other hostages last summer; they found strands of her hair but she had already been moved.
  [Washington Post / Adam Goldman and Karen DeYoung]

Meanwhile, a UN report shows that ISIS has been viciously abusing the children Mueller had gone to the Syrian border to protect, reporting "several cases of mass executions of boys, as well as reports of beheadings, crucifixions of children and burying children alive."
[AP]

• Also check out this article, "A life devoted to helping children and refugees: tributes to Islamic State hostage Kayla," from The World At School (Feb 10, 2015).