Stefan Aristidou, a Greek-British national who vanished after landing at Larnaca Airport in Cyprus in 2015, has been found in a Turkish town near the border with Syria, where he said he had gone to live in a city controlled by the Islamic State.
During the two years he was off the grid, his family said they searched for him and issued frantic appeals for help, including from the Lucie Blackman Trust, a charity set up to help relatives of missing or murdered people overseas. It has now withdrawn its aid.
Aristidou was discovered in Kilis, 43 miles from the bombed-out city of Aleppo, essentially destroyed during Syria’s civil war.
This week the British national resurfaced in the Turkish town of Kilis, three miles from the Syrian border and around 43 miles from Aleppo.
Neighbors told the British newspaper The Guardian that shortly before going missing Stefan changed his style of clothing, adopting Islamic dress and started attending a mosque.
Aristidou lived with his mother, Maria, a complementary therapist who is working towards a PhD, and sister Stasia, who works for a major oil firm. The family have lived in the semi-detached house for more than 20 years, the paper reported.
His father, Aristos, who works for a telecoms utility firm, moved out of the family home after he and his wife separated, but he still lives in London.
One person who asked not to be named said Maria and Stasia were quiet neighbors and never spoke about Stefan after he went missing.
But she added: “I had a feeling he had gone somewhere like that. He suddenly started wearing Islamic clothing shortly before he went missing. We would see him leave on his own. Before then he dressed in western clothes, jeans, you know.”
His family declined to speak to the newspaper, which reported that he grew up in the leafy suburb of Enfield, in north London and that he reportedly told Turkish authorities he had traveled to Syria not to fight with any group but to “settle” – in Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIS.
He was picked up with a British woman of Bangladeshi origin identified as his wife. An American man was also detained.
A spokeswoman for the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) told the paper: “We are in contact with the Turkish authorities following the detention of a British man on the Turkey/Syria border.”
Around 850 so-called foreign fighters have travelled from the UK to Syria and Iraq to fight with Islamic State or other jihadi groups such as al-Nusra Front, and in some cases to join the civil war against the regime of the Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad. It is believed around half of these fighters have returned to the UK and around 200 have died.
Stasia, through her public Instagram account, frequently published photos of her brother with messages describing her feelings about his disappearance.
“Missing him,” she wrote in one post. “Can’t even watch the TV now without something reminding me. I want him back.”
“Hope he’s out there still smiling,” she wrote in another. “Every now and then I found something that belonged to him and it instantly makes me cry.”
The post Greek-Briton Who Vanished in 2015 Found in Turkey, Lived in ISIS Stronghold appeared first on The National Herald.