US President Barack Obama on Tuesday confirmed the death of Kayla Mueller, a US aid worker who had been held hostage by Islamic State militants, saying the United States would “find and bring to justice the terrorists who are responsible”.
Mueller’s family also said in a statement that they were “heartbroken” to learn of her death and released a copy of a letter she had written in 2014 while in captivity.
Kayla Mueller was determined to have died after her Islamic State captors reached out privately to her family over the weekend, a White House spokeswoman said.
“Over the weekend, the family received a private message from Kayla’s ISIL captors containing additional information,” spokeswoman Bernadette Meehan said, using an acronym for Islamic State.
“Once this information was authenticated by the intelligence community, they concluded that Kayla was deceased.”
