The voice messages sent by Abbas Hussein’s teenage son are heartbreaking in their matter-of-factness. The boy, a member of Iraq’s Yazidi minority who was kidnapped by Islamic State fighters seven years ago, asks about his mother and wonders why his father has not been in touch.
In the messages sent last summer to his father, an unemployed laborer, the son says his captor will not let him send any more because his parents have not delivered payments as demanded.