Travis Timmerman says he was detained after crossing into Syria on a Christian pilgrimage earlier this yr.
The US is working to carry house a US citizen found in Syria, Secretary of State Antony Blinken has mentioned.
Travis Timmerman seems to have been amongst 1000’s of individuals launched from the nation’s notorious prisons after Syrian President Bashar al-Assad was ousted this week in a lightning offensive by armed opposition teams.
“We’re working to carry him house,” Blinken mentioned throughout a go to to neighbouring Jordan on Thursday to debate the state of affairs in Syria, including that he couldn’t present “any particulars on precisely what’s going to occur”.
Timmerman, a 29-year-old from the US state of Missouri, instructed reporters that he was detained after crossing into Syria on foot throughout a Christian pilgrimage seven months in the past.
Video footage launched on-line on Thursday confirmed him mendacity on a mattress underneath a blanket in what gave the impression to be a personal home. A gaggle of males mentioned that he was being handled nicely and could be safely returned house.
“It was OK. I used to be fed. I used to be watered. The one issue was that I couldn’t go to the lavatory once I wished to,” Timmerman mentioned later in an interview with the Al Arabiya tv community, including that he was solely allowed to go 3 times a day.
“I used to be not crushed and the guards handled me decently,” Timmerman mentioned.
Missouri regulation enforcement had reported Timmerman lacking in Hungary earlier this yr, and in August, Hungarian police put out a lacking individuals announcement saying he was final seen at a church in Budapest.
His launch comes as Syrians have poured into the nation’s infamous prisons in search of family members who went lacking throughout al-Assad’s crackdown on human rights activists, opposition teams and different perceived opponents.
Rights teams and the United Nations have mentioned tens of 1000’s of Syrian civilians had been arbitrarily detained or disappeared by the Syrian authorities since 2011, when a preferred rebellion in opposition to al-Assad’s rule started.
The detention centres had been rife with mass killings, torture and different merciless and inhuman remedy, and Amnesty International dubbed one infamous facility close to the capital Damascus, Sednaya, a “human slaughterhouse”.
As video emerged on-line of Timmerman on Thursday, he was initially mistaken by some for Austin Tice, an American journalist who went lacking after he was kidnapped in Syria 12 years in the past.
Syria’s new transitional authorities mentioned in an announcement on Telegram that the seek for Tice was ongoing and that it was able to cooperate with Washington to search for Individuals disappeared underneath al-Assad.
In 2022, US President Joe Biden accused the Syrian government of holding Tice.
Since al-Assad’s ouster, Biden has mentioned his administration believes Tice was alive and was dedicated to bringing him house.
“We expect we are able to get him again, however we’ve got no direct proof of that but. And Assad must be held accountable,” the president said on Sunday. “We’ve got to establish the place he’s.”
