Austin Tice’s mother in Damascus has been hoping to find her son, who has been missing since 2012.
Maya Gebeili
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – The mother of Austin Tice, the American journalist who was kidnapped while reporting in Syria in August 2012, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to search for her son and said she hoped to bring him home. her.
Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy, was one of the first American journalists to enter Syria after the civil war broke out.
His mother, Debra Tice, drove into the Syrian capital from Lebanon with Nizar Zaka, who Hostage Aid Worldwide, whom Austin is looking for and believes is still in Syria.
“I’d love to put my arm around Austin while I’m here,” Debra Tees told Reuters in the Syrian capital. Before they stop issuing visas.
The Syrian rebels’ ouster of Bashar al-Assad’s government in December allowed her to visit again from her home in Texas.
“I feel really strong that Austin is here, and I think he knows that I’m here… I’m here,” she said.
Debra Tice and Zaka hope to meet with new Syrian officials, including the new head of the administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to get information about Austin. They also hope that US President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, will take up the issue.
“I’m hoping to get some answers. And of course, you know, we have graduation on Monday, and I think that should be a big change,” she said.
“I know President Trump is very negotiator, so I have a lot of confidence there. But right now we have an unknown on this[Syria]side. It’s hard to know if they even have information about it,” she said.
Her son, now 43 years old, was captured in August 2012 while traveling in Daraya, Damascus.
Reuters first reported In 2013, Tice, a former US Marine, managed to sneak out of his room and was seen moving between houses in the streets of the upscale Mazeh neighborhood of Damascus.
He was recaptured shortly after his escape, likely by forces that answer directly to Assad, current and former U.S. officials said.
Debra Tice
Even in recent months, she criticized the outgoing US President Joe Biden’s administration, saying that they did not negotiate enough for her son’s release.
“We really felt that President Biden was in a very good position to do everything he could to bring Austin home, right? I mean, this was the end of his career. That was a wonderful thing for him to do. So we had something to look forward to. He pardoned his own son, right? So where’s my son?”
“My mind was spinning,” Debra Tees said as she crossed the Lebanese border into Syria and spoke of the tens of thousands whose loved ones were imprisoned in Assad’s prisons and whose fates were unknown.
“They have a lot in common with a lot of Syrian mothers and families, and just thinking about how this affects them — do they have the same hope that I do, to open a door, to see their loved one?”
