Debra Tice in Damascus searching for missing journalist’s son, Austin. : NPR

DAMASCUS, Syria—Debra Tice, the mother of American journalist Austin Tice who disappeared in Syria twelve years ago, is visiting Syria and meeting with officials of the country’s new de facto government in hopes of finding new clues about the fate of his son.

“We are turning a page in Syria,” Tice told reporters in Damascus, the Syrian capital. “I think it’s prudent for us to have very high hopes and believe that we’re going to be able to engage and that they’re going to want to help us reunite our families.”

Last December, rebels led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, group overthrew Syria’s former dictator, President Bashar al-Assad. Debra Tice is trying to work with Syria’s new de facto government to find her son, Austin, now 43.

Her son disappeared while covering the Syrian civil war, after being arrested at a checkpoint on the outskirts of Damascus in 2012.

During her visit this week, Debra Tice visited two former military prisons and met with Syria’s current de facto leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, for approximately three hours.

Sharaa himself was arrested by US forces and held for five years in various detention centers, including Abu Ghraib in Iraq.

“One of the things we talked about with Mr. Sharaa was his own imprisonment,” Tice said. “They know what we’re going through. And while doing their important work, they’re trying to make things right for people like us.”

Tice said Sharaa was committed to helping him. She also said the new Trump administration has already contacted her to help find out what happened to her son.

Tice spent more than three months in Syria in 2014, during which she said she learned to love the country her son spoke of. She last visited Syria in 2015, after which the Assad regime no longer granted her a visa.

“I know I come here, I’m one of the Syrian mothers,” Tice said, referring to the mothers of tens of thousands of Syrians who have disappeared into Assad’s vast prison system. “And we can sit and have tea together, and we can also do tasks together.”