It’s been over a decade since journalist Austin Tice went missing in Syria, and on Sunday, President Joe Biden said he believes Tice is still alive.
Tice’s family also shares Biden’s belief.
The president said he believes that Tice could be returned now that President Bashar al-Assad’s government has been toppled by rebels over the weekend, according to The New York Times.
Tice is a freelance journalist who was in Syria to cover the country’s civil war during his summer break from Georgetown law school, “because he believed there was a lack of reporting from the ground,” according to USA Today.
From Houston, Texas, Tice had written articles for The Washington Post, McClatchy newspapers and other news outlets.
It was just a few days after his 31st birthday that the former Marine captain went missing at a checkpoint outside of Damascus as he was making his way to Lebanon on Aug. 14, 2012.
The last time Tice was seen or heard from was in a video titled “Austin Tice is Alive” that was released weeks after his abduction, which showed him bound and blindfolded while surrounded by a group of armed men, per Fox News.
At a news conference on Friday, Tice’s mother Debra said the family had received information from a “significant source” which confirmed her son was alive, according to The Associated Press.
Biden said that while they believe he is alive, they still are working to pinpoint Tice’s exact location.
According to the BBC, the FBI has also renewed its offer of a $1 million reward to anyone with information that leads to Tice’s safe return.
There are two known Americans who have gone missing in Syria since the conflict that began in 2011.
Tice is one, and the other is Majd Kamalmaz, “a trauma psychologist from Virginia who vanished in Syria in 2017 while on a trip to visit a family member and to help treat refugees and other victims of one of this century’s deadliest civil wars,” according to USA Today.