The family of missing American journalist Austin Tice have slammed the ‘deeply disrespectful’ rumor claiming that his body has been found in Syria.
Tice, 43, was kidnapped while reporting in the war-torn Middle Eastern country on August 13, 2012, and his family have been striving to secure his safe return.
On Sunday, several newspapers reported that the former US Marine’s body had been discovered in a Syrian cemetery, indicating that he had died.
However, rumors of the Texas native’s death have not been verified by officials, and his family have called the reports ‘erroneous’.
‘We appreciate whatever mission is ongoing to help families of ISIS victims find closure,’ they said, according to CNN international correspondent Clarissa Ward.
‘However, an initial and erroneous report that Austin Tice was identified among the remains was quickly and completely contradicted.
‘The gratuitous repetition of this rumor is designed for clicks and is unfortunate and deeply disrespectful to the family.’
US officials are working with contacts inside Syria to try to find Tice, and in December, then-outgoing president Joe Biden said he believed he was still alive.
The White House said finding Tice was ‘a top priority’ after the dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad’s brutal regime in the final weeks of 2024.
The FBI also reissued its $1 million reward for information leading to his safe recovery and return.
Tice was 31 when he was abducted in August 2012 while reporting in Damascus on the uprising against Assad, who was ousted by rebels after 24 years in power.
He freelanced for several well-known publications, including McClatchy, The Washington Post and CBS News.
Syrian officials had always denied he was in their custody.
‘Austin Tice is alive, in Syria, and it’s time for him to come home,’ his parents Debra and Marc Tice said after Assad was overthrown in December.
‘We are eagerly anticipating seeing Austin walk free and we are asking anyone who can do so to please assist Austin so he can safely return home to our family.’
Rescue mission leader Bryan Stern also told DailyMail.com he received information just before rebel forces overthrew Assad indicating that Tice was still alive.
However, he added that since prisons in Syria were abandoned amid the coup, there were fears that Tice may not have been able to access food or water.
‘One of the nuances here is that if you operate under the assumption that Austin is alive, or at least right until the Assad regime fell – if you take all that as true, then the facilities that he was in have since been abandoned,’ Grey Bull Rescue founder Stern explained.
‘He is probably, if he’s being held and if he’s alive, is hidden in a secret room, within a secret place, within a secret building, within a secret tunnel – one of those deals.
‘Very, very, very few people actually know that, which means, from a tactical perspective, probably Austin has been in a room with no food, no water for about eight days.’
The Assad regime crumbled when the armed Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham stormed into the capital Damascus.
Assad was reported to have been granted political asylum by his allies in Moscow.
In the wake of his departure, crowds descended on Sednaya prison to find relatives who have been missing since the early stages of the 13-year-long civil war.
The Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated this year that 130,000 people were subject to arbitrary arrest or detention during the conflict.