Timmerman said he was on a pilgrimage to Damascus before he was detained by Syrian officials, who found him as he lived in a mountainous area near the Lebanese border “without food and water” for three days, though it’s not immediately clear how long Timmerman was imprisoned, NBC News reported.

The Missouri man, who was reported missing by Hungarian police in an alert published in June, appears to have been freed along with thousands of other detainees who have been emerging from Syria's jails following the toppling of the country's longtime dictator President Bashar Assad earlier this month.

A man identifying himself as Missourian Travis Timmerman tells CBS News he was liberated from a Syrian prison upon dictator Bashar al-Assad's ouster.