A missing American man who was found in Syria on Thursday after being imprisoned for seven months told multiple reporters that his newfound freedom was nothing short of a “Christmas miracle.”
At the same time, the man who identified himself as Missouri native Travis Timmerman also told the press his experience in confinement “wasn’t too bad.” The 29-year-old spoke with a handful of outlets — including CNN, NBC News and CBS News — after he was spotted walking out of his Damascus prison while trying to find a way out of the country.
Timmerman said he initially entered Syria via Lebanon earlier this year for Christian “spiritual purposes,” perhaps in line with a religious pilgrimage (Syria is home to several important biblical sites, including Damascus, which is where Paul the Apostle converted to Christianity, according to Christian teachings).
He then explained that two men armed with guns broke his door down with a hammer on Monday, leaving him free to go out of nowhere.
“My door was busted down, it woke me up,” Timmerman recalled. “I thought the guards were still there, so I thought the warfare could have been more active than it ended up being … once we got out, there was no resistance, there was no real fighting.”
Timmerman’s self-described exit is similar to that of the Syrian prisoner who was freed from his windowless cell by CNN’s Clarissa Ward on-camera on Wednesday.
“In nearly 20 years as a journalist, this was one of the most extraordinary moments I have witnessed,” Ward said of the remarkable video, which shows the the man grasp her hand tightly, saying, “My God, there is light.”
Both instances occurred after Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell on Sunday, with rebel forces since taking over the capital. Assad was granted asylum in Russia. You can watch Timmerman’s impromptu press conference in the video, above.
