The parents of an American humanitarian worker held hostage by Islamic State since August 2013 said on Friday they are hopeful she is still alive, after the group said she was killed in a bombing by Jordanian fighter jets.
Carl and Marsha Mueller, the parents of Kayla Jean Mueller, asked the Islamic State group to contact them privately, according to a statement released by a family representative.
"This news leaves us concerned, yet, we are still hopeful that Kayla is alive," they said in the message.
Ms Mueller was the last-known American hostage held by Islamic State, which controls wide areas of Syria and Iraq. The militant Islamist group has beheaded three other Americans, two Britons and two Japanese hostages - most of them aid workers or journalists - in recent months.
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Kayla Mueller, from the small city of Prescott about 100 miles north of Phoenix, felt compelled to help others from an early age, according to a statement from the family.
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As a high school student at Tri City College Prep, she received several awards, in part for her volunteering with groups like AmeriCorps and Big Brothers Big Sisters, the statement said.
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Ms Mueller relocated to the Turkish-Syrian border in December 2012 to help Syrian refugees, working with the Danish Refugee Council and the aid group Support to Life. She was taken by Islamic State while leaving a hospital in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo in August 2013.
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© Thomson Reuters 2015
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