US NGO claims journalist Austin Tice, missing since 2012, is alive in Syria

“We have data that Austin is alive till January 2024, but the president of the US said in August that he is alive, and we are sure that he is alive today,” Hostage Aid Worldwide’s Nizar Zakka said.

“We are trying to be as transparent as possible and to share as much information as possible.”

At a press conference in Damascus, Zakka showed an image he said indicated the locations where Tice had been held from November 2017 to February 2024.

Hostage Aid Worldwide says it is working with Tice’s family and the US authorities.

Tice, 43, was working for Agence France-Presse, McClatchy News, The Washington Post, CBS and other media outlets in Syria.

He went missing near Damascus in August 2012.

The authorities under ousted president Bashar al-Assad never said they had him in custody.

Tice’s mother Debra said earlier this month that she had information that her son was alive, while Syria’s new leadership said it was searching for him.

Hostage Aid Worldwide also said it believed senior cleric Yohanna Ibrahim, a Syrian-American dual citizen, had been held by Assad’s government.

The group did not elaborate on whether it believed Ibrahim was still alive.

“He is a US citizen,” Zakka said, adding that Ibrahim “was seen in 2018 in Branch 291” of the security forces.

The senior Aleppo cleric of the Syriac Orthodox Church was kidnapped in April 2013.

Assad’s government had claimed that Ibrahim was kidnapped by jihadists.