A man who identified himself as Travis Timmerman was released from a Syrian prison on Monday December, 8th after being held captive since May. Timmermen stated that he was on a pilgrimage to Damascus and was stopped by Syrian official’s after crossing into the country on foot.

Timmermen who initially only identified himself as “Travis” was misidentified, in a video of him asking for water as an American journalist named Austin Tice who went missing 12 years ago(AP News, Dec 12).

In an interview with NBC Timmermen said that “I was fed well, I always has water, the only difficulty was not being able to go to the bathroom” (Bradly, Engel, and Da Silva, Dec 12). He was released by a group of rebel forces who broke into prisons across the country to release prisoners.

Timmermen said that after he was released he spent the next few days walking around the streets barefoot and sleeping outside as well as in abandoned buildings (NBC,Dec 12).

He was found by a local who recorded him asking for water which made the video that caused him to be misidentified. After being located by NBC and others he told them that he had “been reading the scripture a lot” before he decided to climb the mountains from Lebanon to Syria (Bradly, Engle, and Da Silva, Dec 12).