The Assad regime stopped Debra Tice from entering Syria to search for son Austin, but its downfall has helped to renew her hope

Debra Tice had managed to gather her family in one place in early December – no easy feat given they were spread across the US and Australia. When they planned their reunion months before, the Tice family had no idea they would be together to watch the Assad regime fall after a lightning 11-day rebel offensive toppled the 53-year rule.

“It was amazing for us to be together like that – it doesn’t happen often – to watch that together,” Debra said from a hotel room in Damascus. Only one member of her family was missing from the reunion, her son Austin Tice, a journalist who was kidnapped at the age of 31 in a suburb outside Damascus in 2012, while reporting on the Syrian civil war.