Debra Tice had managed to collect her household in a single place in early December – no straightforward feat given they have been unfold throughout the US and Australia. Once they deliberate their reunion months earlier than, the Tice household had no concept they’d be collectively to observe the Assad regime fall after a lightning 11-day insurgent offensive toppled the 53-year rule.
“It was superb for us to be collectively like that – it doesn’t occur usually – to observe that collectively,” Debra mentioned from a resort room in Damascus. Just one member of her household was lacking from the reunion, her son Austin Tice, a journalist who was kidnapped on the age of 31 in a suburb outdoors Damascus in 2012, whereas reporting on the Syrian civil battle.
On Saturday, Debra returned to Damascus after almost 10 years. Although initially cooperative, the Assad regime stopped issuing her visas in 2015 as she looked for her son, who was believed to have been held by the federal government itself. Austin would now be 43 years outdated, after 12 years of captivity.
The final footage of Tice was posted in 2012, exhibiting the reporter blindfolded, led by males who compelled him to recite Islamic prayer earlier than he mentioned, in obvious misery, “Oh Jesus, oh Jesus. God.”
There are doubts about whether or not the video was staged to make it look as if Tice was kidnapped by Islamist rebels, slightly than the federal government. Consultants mentioned the boys within the video have been carrying garments native to Afghanistan, slightly than Syria.
With the Assad regime gone, the seek for Tice can resume. Nizar Zakka, the pinnacle of Hostage Assist Worldwide (HAW) and a former hostage in Iran, entered Syria a couple of days after the autumn of the regime and started to seek for the journalist.
“You need to see the way in which we enter these safety branches, we invade them,” Zakka mentioned. He introduced with him a group of 12 cargo pants clad workers members, whom he directs with military-like orders.
Collectively, they’ve spent the final six weeks combing by means of former branches of state safety, army intelligence and even the house of the previous head of the Syrian air power intelligence unit, Jamil Hassan. Wherever they assume a VIP hostage like Tice may need been held, they’re searching for paperwork, laborious drives, something together with his identify on it.
“As a former hostage myself, I do know the place to look, the place folks would possibly write data on the jail partitions, the place they preserve the high-value hostages,” Zakka mentioned.
To this point, the group has not discovered any paperwork that pertain to Austin Tice. Their working idea is that the reporter is being held in a Syrian protected home by a high-level regime determine who desires to make use of Tice as a bargaining chip for their very own protected passage outdoors Syria. Zakka mentioned they’d a couple of leads on the place these protected homes could also be, however have “nothing concrete”.
For months, the HAW had run advertisements on TV and radio inside Syria, urging folks to contact them if they’d any data on Tice’s whereabouts. Since his detention, no social gathering has produced a proof of life.
HAW say they consider Tice is alive and nicely based mostly off numerous experiences they acquired, together with what they are saying are paperwork from medical remedies he acquired throughout his 12 years of captivity. Former US president Joseph Biden additionally mentioned he believed Tice was alive.
With new management in Washington and Damascus, the Tice household consider that there’s renewed hope to search out their son.
“Immediately goes to be a brand new day for us, issues are going to vary … it’s like beginning over once more, it’s a brand new starting after 8 December,” Debra Tice mentioned at a press convention on Monday in Damascus.
She added that Trump administration officers had already contacted her relating to Austin, and she or he had met the de facto chief of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, to debate his case the day earlier than.
The Tice household is going through the identical challenges that Syrian households of the greater than 100,000 forcibly disappeared who didn’t emerge from Assad’s detention centres have encountered for the reason that fall of the regime.
Jail services which maintain essential documentation aren’t being safeguarded. Looting, busted water pipes and neglect have led to 1000’s of lacking paperwork.
The Assad regime’s safety apparatuses took meticulous notes and its numerous branches are full of paperwork. Human rights organisations concern that if not safeguarded, key data that would assist folks discover their family members might be misplaced.
“The precedence proper now could be to shut all the safety centres and never permit anybody in. We want everybody who took paperwork to return them,” mentioned Bayan Rehan, a member of the Households for Freedom affiliation whose brother was arrested by the Assad regime.
Sharaa has but to fulfill with a consultant from Syrian associations like Households for Freedom and they don’t have the identical assets that the Tice household has been in a position to mobilise.
The UN created an Unbiased Establishment on Lacking Individuals within the Syrian Arab Republic in the summertime of 2023, however the fee has but to deploy a group on the bottom on account of lack of funds.
“We’re used to the UN not serving to us,” Rehan mentioned with a shrug.
Debra Tice left Damascus on Tuesday, however work to search out her son, and different folks forcibly disappeared by the Assad regime, continues.
“Austin, if you happen to can one way or the other hear this, I really like you. I do know you’re not giving up and neither am I,” she mentioned.
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