American Man Missing in Syria Rescued from Prison – One America News Network
OAN Staff Abril Elfi
10:31 AM – Saturday, December 14, 2024
A Missouri resident has been found in Syria after spending several months in captivity.
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On Thursday, a man named Travis Timmerman was located after enduring months of imprisonment, following his entry into Syria on a “pilgrimage” to Damascus.
Reports indicate that it was not publicly known that the individual who vanished in Hungary in May was actually in Syria.
His reappearance coincided with the mass release of detainees from prisons due to the recent ousting of President Bashar al-Assad.
Timmerman was first spotted in a video that emerged overnight, leading some to mistakenly identify him as missing American journalist Austin Tice.
During an interview, Timmerman, 29, recounted how Syrian authorities detained him this year after he entered the country on foot.
“I was on a pilgrimage to Damascus,” he told NBC News from a location in the outskirts of the capital.
He explained that he had survived three days in a mountainous area along the Lebanon-Syria border “without food and water” until he was discovered by a border guard and taken into custody.
According to Timmerman, he spent months in prison where he “was fed well and always had water,” but faced challenges with regular restroom access.
He was liberated by rebel forces storming regime-run prisons across the country.
After his release, Timmerman described days spent wandering barefoot in the streets, finding shelter outdoors and in an abandoned home. Eventually, a local resident, whom he approached for water, identified him. Shortly after, he appeared in a video that gained significant traction on social media, attracting considerable media attention.
Upon being discovered in Dhiyabia, Timmerman mentioned that he had “been reading scripture a lot” prior to his decision to navigate the mountains from Lebanon into Syria.
Reportedly, an individual had repeatedly offered to connect him with U.S. officials, but he stated he was “OK for right now.”
Later, he shared with NBC News that his time in captivity was “actually good for me,” referring to it as “a time of solace, of meditation, and I’m stronger for it.”
Timmerman indicated that he had been traveling in Europe before beginning his pilgrimage.
Earlier in the year, missing person reports were filed in Missouri and Budapest, Hungary, for an individual named Pete Timmerman, identified by Hungarian authorities as “Travis Pete Timmerman.”
The Missouri State Highway Patrol had issued a public alert noting that Timmerman disappeared from Budapest on May 28th, nearly seven months prior. Hungarian officials stated that he was last seen at a church and had departed for an unknown location, with no signs of his whereabouts thereafter.
Timmerman plans to travel to Jordan before making an attempt to return to Damascus, where he hopes to reconnect with his family, who he has yet to contact.
A U.S. official confirmed Washington’s awareness of reports regarding an American found near Damascus and expressed efforts to provide assistance. They added that “out of respect for his privacy, we have no further information to provide at this time.”
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