Author: Maya Gebeily
DAMASCUS (Reuters) – The mother of American journalist Austin Tice, who was captured during a reporting trip in Syria in August 2012, arrived in Damascus on Saturday to step up the search for her son and said she hoped to bring him home with her. .
Tice, who worked as a freelance reporter for the Washington Post and McClatchy, was one of the first American journalists to arrive in Syria after the civil war broke out.
His mother, Debra Tice, drove to the Syrian capital from Lebanon with Nizar Zakka, head of Hostage Aid Worldwide, an organization that is searching for Austin and believes he is still in Syria.
“It would be nice to hug Austin while I’m here. It would be the best,” Debra Tice told Reuters in the Syrian capital, which she last visited in 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities about her son, before she was stopped to issue visas.
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December by Syrian rebels allowed her to visit again from her home in Texas.
“I feel very strongly that Austin is here, and I think he knows I’m here… I’m here,” she said.
Debra Tice and Zakka hope to meet with the new Syrian authorities, including the head of the new administration Ahmed al-Sharaa, to push the information on Austin. They are also optimistic that US President-elect Donald Trump, who will be inaugurated on Monday, will take up the cause.
“I’m hoping to get some answers. And of course, you know, we have the inauguration on Monday, and I think that should be a big change,” she said.
“I know that President Trump is a pretty good negotiator, so I have a lot of confidence in that. But now we have an unknown on this (Syrian) side. It’s hard to know if those who are coming have any information about him at all,” she said.
Her son, now 43, was captured in August 2012 while traveling through the Damascus suburb of Daraya.
Reuters first reported in December that in 2013 Tice, a former US Marine, managed to slip out of his cell and was seen moving between houses on the streets of the posh Mazzeh neighborhood in Damascus.
He was recaptured shortly after escaping, possibly by forces reporting directly to Assad, current and former US officials said.
Debra Tice came to Syria in 2012 and 2015 to meet with Syrian authorities, who never confirmed Tice was in their custody, both she and Zakka said.
She 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.
“We certainly felt that President Biden was in a good position to do everything possible to bring Austin home, right? I mean, this was the end of his career. This would be a wonderful thing for him. So we expected. He pardoned his own son, right? So, where is my son?”
Debra Tice said her “mind was just spinning” as she drove across the Lebanese border into Syria and tearfully spoke of the tens of thousands whose loved ones are being 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 when I just think about how this is affecting them – do they have the same hope that I do, to open the door, to go see their loved one?”
