The mother of Austin Tice, the American journalist who was captured while on a reporting trip to Syria in August 2012, arrived in Damascus to intensify the search for her son and said she hoped to be able to take him home.
Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for The Washington Post and McClatchy, was one of the first American journalists to visit Syria after the civil war began.
His mother, Debra Tice, came to the Syrian capital from Lebanon with Nizar Zakka, the head of Hostage Aid Worldwide, an organization that is searching for Austin and believes he is still in Syria.
“It would be great to have my arms around Austin when I’m here. It would be the best,” Debra Tice told Reuters on Saturday in the Syrian capital, where she last spoke to Syrian authorities about her son in 2015. Had gone to meet. , before they stopped granting him a visa.
He has been allowed to visit his home in Texas again after Syrian rebels ousted Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December.
She said, “I feel very strongly that Austin is here, and I think he knows I’m here… I’m here.”
Debra Tice and Zakka are hoping to meet with Syrian officials, including the head of its new administration, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to get information about Austin. They are also optimistic that US President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, will take up the issue.
“I hope to get some answers. And of course, you know, we have [the] Inauguration on Monday, and I think it should be a big change,” she said.
“I know President Trump is quite a negotiator, so I have a lot of confidence there. But now we have an unknown on this (Syrian) side. It’s hard to know, whether the people who are coming even have information about him.” Or not,” he said.
His son, now 43, was captured in August 2012 while traveling through the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
Reuters previously reported that in 2013 Tice, a former Marine, managed to break out of his cell and was seen walking between houses on the streets of Damascus’ posh Mazzeh neighborhood. the new York Times That letter was the first to report on his escape and recapture.
Current and former US officials said he was recaptured soon after the escape, possibly by forces answering directly to Assad.
Debra Tice came to Syria in 2012 and 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities, who never confirmed that Tice was in their custody, both she and Zakka said.
She criticized the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden, saying it did not negotiate adequately for her son’s release even in recent months.
“We certainly felt that President Biden was in a great position to do everything possible to bring Austin home, right? I mean, it was the end of his career. It would be a wonderful thing for him to do So, we hoped he forgave his own son, right?
Debra Tice said her “mind was just spinning” as she crossed the Lebanese border into Syria and cried while talking about the thousands of people whose loved ones were held in Assad’s notorious prison system and whose fate Remains unknown.
“I have a lot in common with a lot of Syrian mothers and families, and I’m just wondering what impact this is having on them – whether they have the same hope that I have, that they’re going to open a door, That they are “going to meet their loved one?”
