Hostage envoy Roger Carstens traveled to Syria Friday, making the first known U.S. in-person contact with the caretaker government, and seeking help in finding missing American Austin Tice.

Nongovernmental workers and journalists have scoured prisons for clues about his fate in the absence of an official American presence in the country.

We should ask the militants who toppled Bashar al-Assad in Syria what became of missing U.S. reporter Austin Tice and why

There are no credible hints of his whereabouts, but also no clear evidence that he is dead, a U.S. official said.

The mother of missing journalist Austin Tice told NBC News" "Meet the Press" that seeing an American held captive in Damascus after he was freed was "almost like having a rehearsal."

The scores of prisoners freed after the downfall of the Bashar Assad regime in Syria are giving hope to Debra Tice, mother of the American journalist Austin Tice, who has been missing since being detained in 2012.

US group Hostage Aid Worldwide said Tuesday that it believes journalist Austin Tice, who went missing in Syria in 2012, is still alive, though it did not offer concrete information on his whereabouts.

The recent fall of the Assad regime has infused new hope in the search for Austin Tice, an American detained in Syria for a decade, as prisoners in jails across the country are released, Gustaf Kiland

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria has led to the freeing of tens of thousands of prisoners from the country’s brutal and byzantine prison system. Desperate family members continue to search for many more people who went missing since repression of an anti-government uprising triggered a horrific civil war in 2011.

HOUSTON — The head of an international aid group for hostages believes Houston freelance journalist Austin Tice is alive. This latest update comes a few weeks after another American, Travis Timmerman, was found in Damascus. Tice was detained at a checkpoint near Damascus in 2012 while covering the civil war in Syria.

Bryan Stern, founder of Grey Bull Rescue, says evidence points to a safe return of American journalist and former U.S. Marine Austin Tice, along with other prisoners detained by the brutal Assad regime in Syria.