Author: Jana Choukeir
DUBAI (Reuters) – The mother of American journalist Austin Tice said on Monday she hoped the new administrations in the U.S. and Syria would help her find her missing son, who was captured while reporting near Damascus about 12 years ago.
“Today, January 20, President (Donald) Trump will be sworn in, and I very much hope that his administration will work to bring Austin home,” Debra Tice said at a press conference in Damascus organized by the NGO Hostage Aid Worldwide.
She also said she was encouraged that officials from the new US government had already reached out to her about her missing son.
Tice criticized the administration of outgoing US President Joe Biden, saying they did not negotiate hard enough for her son’s release, even in recent months.
Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and other publications, was one of the first American journalists to arrive in Syria after the civil war broke out in 2011.
She visited in 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities about her son, before they stopped granting her visas.
The ouster of veteran leader Bashar al-Assad in December by Syrian rebels allowed her to visit again from her home in Texas.
Tice added that she met with the new Syrian leaders on Sunday, who she said showed “commitment” to her son’s return. “The new administration knows what we’re going through and is trying to make things right for people like us,” she said.
However, Tice said the Dec. 8 ouster of Assad has complicated the search for her son, making it difficult to know where and who is holding her son.
“It’s like we’re back at the beginning,” she said.
“It’s been over 12 years since I’ve been able to see him or talk to him, but I know he’s here. Austin, if you can somehow hear it, I love you. I know you’re not giving up and neither am I,” she added.
The US State Department said last week that there are currently no US government organizations on the ground in Syria participating in the search for Tice.
Tice was the subject of an extensive search following the ouster of Assad after 13 years of civil war in December.
US officials have expressed concern that Tice may have been killed in recent Israeli airstrikes or that he may have suffocated after Assad’s forces cut off electricity to prisons in Damascus before he left.
He was caught in the Damascus suburb of Daraya. Reuters previously reported that in 2013 Tice, a former marine, managed to slip out of his cell and was seen moving between houses on the streets of Damascus’ posh Mazzeh neighborhood.
He was recaptured shortly after escaping, possibly by forces reporting directly to Assad, current and former US officials said. The Syrian authorities have never confirmed that Tice is in their custody. The The New York Times (NYSE: ) was the first to report that brief breakout and recapture.
Tens of thousands of Syrian prisoners have been released from Assad’s prisons since the end of his repressive rule.
