Summary        

My sister, Jacqueline "Nicole" Vienneau, a Canadian tourist, disappeared in Syria on Saturday, March 31st, 2007 at the age of 32. She was in her fifth month of a six-month solo adventure through West Africa and the Middle East. She was last seen by the desk clerk at 8:30 in the morning as she left the Cairo Hotel in Hama, two hours north of Damascus.



She definitely intended to return to the hotel as her backpack was left in her room along with the memory cards from her camera, full of photos. She also left her journals that include an entry made the night before she disappeared. Canadian police retrieved her Hotmail account email records indicating she attempted to login around 8:30 Friday night but was unable to (Syrian Internet connections are not reliable). Her last completed emails were sent Thursday night.

Nicole's guidebook was also left in her room. In the back of her Lonely Planet "Middle East" guidebook she wrote directions to a number of places in Syria that we believe she copied from the Cairo Hotel's copy of the Lonely Planet "Syria" guidebook. Nicole spoke with some guests about these locations earlier in the week and the hotel clerk indicated that on the morning she disappeared, she asked for directions to the "Beehive Houses", a local sightseeing destination, as well as Qasr Ibn Wardan (a nearby castle).



No one at these locations recalls seeing Nicole (and they are not heavily visited) and the Qasr Ibn Wardan logbook has a record of only one visitor, Amin Ben Yahia, a person of interest to us (b. 1984, Algerian/Swiss nationality, father is Abbas, mother is Monica) in hopes that he remembers something unusual about that day.

Nicole preferred taking local transit, but none of the minibus drivers or locals remembers seeing her. As a foreigner, Nicole stood out in all of Syria, but particularly in Hama where the majority of women in Hama dress in robes and cover their hair. The streets from the hotel to the minibus pick-up are main streets with lots of people, even at 8:30 in the morning.



In May 2007, I flew to Syria with Nicole's fiancé Gary to re-trace her steps and meet with police and local officials. Gary spent an additional two months criss-crossing Syria searching for clues. My mother joined Gary in Syria in July 2007 and met with the Grand Mufti as well as the Minister of the Interior. She also made a personal plea on Syrian television and we put ads in the newspapers and local flyers. Gary and my mother returned to Syria in April 2008 to raise awareness and follow up on leads with officials and the police.

My mother returned to Syria with Gary for a third visit in March 2009 and we continue to work with Syrian government and police officials on the investigation.

There is up to 2,250,000 Syrian pounds ($45,000) in reward money for information leading us to Nicole.

We are currently looking for other guests at the Cairo Hotel in case they spoke with Nicole. A list is at the bottom of this page.



For pictures of Nicole and what she was wearing when she disappeared, as well as relevant personal information and summaries of the search so far, please visit:

http://www.findnicolevienneau.com/

From the "official" website, you can also submit anonymous tips, make donations towards the search, view the picture gallery and download posters and Nicole's notes. Arabic versions of most pages are also available. Public comments can be made here to the blog.

You can always email me directly and anonymously at mattv99@hotmail.com

All comments and emails, public and private, are read immediately, but unfortunately I cannot respond to everyone. Feel free to respond in any language that you're comfortable with, though all of my responses will likely be in English.



December 20th (Noon):

Now that Amanda Lindhout is back in Canada more details are emerging on what happened and some are quite notable. First, they hired ransom "specialists" at a rate of $3,000 a day to assist with freeing Amanda because the government is not only not trained in that stuff, their official advice is to do nothing and not pay a ransom. We haven't spoken too much about the specialists we've hired over the past few years, but I can confirm the daily rate as about average. This is why it's so expensive to do these searches, and we don't face a ransom demand (if only!) We can also confirm that the government does not have specialists trained in retrieving missing people or navigating foreign legal systems.

Second, this Toronto Star article details how Amanda's family and home town kept everything secret, particularly the fundraising, so that the kidnappers didn't raise the ransom demands. Our approach to finding Nicole has been a mix of secrecy and openness, but once again that's because we aren't facing a ransom situation. There are a number of items that we have not released yet because it would hurt the search, but there are many more items that we never would have learned or discovered without the help of all the volunteers who have learned of our search and tried to help.

Speaking of volunteers, in the past few weeks I've had someone in Jordan contact me and ask for posters to put up and give to a friend heading to Damascus. I've also had someone looking at the Cairo Hotel guest list and trying to find one of the last few guests we have not spoken with. A third contact, a Syrian who is currently in North America, has provided an insider's view on which newspapers are relevant (and cheap) in Hama, should we need to raise public awareness again. Back in 2007 we paid a substantial sum to get ads into the newspapers, but since we weren't in Syria at the time, we never really knew if they were published and where they were published.

Google alerts directed me to this page a few weeks ago. This page bothers me a lot because at the top it implies that by donating to the website, you'll help find Nicole. But the website has no affiliation with our search and no funds are directed towards the search. I believe it's a clearinghouse for missing person information, and my mother put our search on the site. The site may do good work, but I don't like how it markets itself. If you want to donate $150 to find Nicole, please use the official website and it will go directly towards our bills for international search specialists.

As a result of some specialist work, we have been able to rule out a lead involving a substantial amount of cash being paid to the Cairo Hotel desk clerk allowing him to start his own business soon after Nicole went missing. The source of the funds has been determined and it is unlikely to have been a payment for Nicole. I am very happy we were able to tie up this loose end.



December 6th (Evening) - Nicole's 35th Birthday:

(Posted by my mother)

Today is Nicole’s 35th birthday.

It is unbelievable that this is now the 3rd birthday to pass since we last heard from her. At first we counted the number of days that she had been missing, then that turned into the number of months. Now it is coming up to 3 years. It feels like an eternity.

Once again I would like to take this opportunity to thank everyone for everything they have done to support the family in trying to find Nicole. As time passes, I appreciate more and more just how important that support has been. As with any traumatic event, it takes a while for reality to set in and until it does, you are just going through the motions of living.

Unfortunately, we still do not know what has happened. Despite the time that has passed we remain hopeful. As more than one Syrian authority has assured us, the fact that nothing has been found is an indication that she is still alive. If she had met a tragic end, they claim they would have found her by now.

We have made some progress this past year. After 2 years of repeatedly asking, we were finally allowed to take our private investigators into Syria; however, they were not allowed to ‘investigate’. They could only observe and advise us, but even that was helpful. We were also able to tie up another loose end. There was a possibility that she had been trafficked to North Africa. Just this month we have been able determine that this was not the case. However, it does not mean that she wasn’t trafficked to other parts, e.g. Dubai. Trying to get at the truth has been such a painfully slow process. We’ve learned that nothing, nothing at all, happens quickly in the Middle East.

Not a day goes by without thoughts of Nicole filling my mind. At first the most painful were those of what was suppose to be. She had just moved in with Gary and they had their whole lives ahead of them. She had just turned 32 and had at least another 50 years of life and adventurers. We had plans for future trips with them, to travel up and down the west coast. And the list goes on. Now the pain is in not knowing. Not knowing whether she is still alive. Not knowing what has happened. Not knowing when we might get some closure. It is just so sad.

I always told her that no matter how grown up she got, that since she was the only daughter I had, she would always be ‘my little girl’. I miss my little girl.

So again Nicole, wherever you are, Happy Birthday Sweetheart.

Love you forever, Mom



November 29th (Noon):

A few weeks ago my mother visited the Syrian Embassy in Ottawa again. You need a visa to enter Syria so mom refreshes it every six months in case she needs to suddenly fly over. While at the Embassy, she also met with the Syrian Ambassador to Canada. While such meetings are satisfying in that you can share your frustrations, they do not tend to lead to anything. Still no new word from Syria or the Canadian government.

Speaking of the Canadian government, we have had many heated discussions with the Freedom of Information people – the people who are supposed to be protecting our rights to get our own information. They are several months behind in providing the result of our FOI request (but now that it is four months late it's being treated as a “priority”) and it is extremely frustrating. Needless to say, should we find new information or leads in those notes (once we eventually get them), we will not stay quiet about the delays.

The recent release of Amanda Lindhout in Somalia gives some hope that this could have a happy ending, though that is a much different situation. Of note to me was the comment that the federal government didn't want to be involved. Right from the Prime Minister's office the message came down to stay away from the situation. That may be due to the ransom demands and Canadian policy to never pay ransoms. It may also have to do with the recent wave of Canadians being selectively abandoned abroad and not wanting to open up the issue again. We certainly feel abandoned in this past year.

A reader recently sent me this CNN story on Ani Ashekian. Ani is a Canadian who went missing in Hong Kong about a year ago. Just like Nicole's disappearance, she was at a budget hotel, everything was normal, and the next day she disappeared and there are no clues or evidence. The family didn't realize she was missing for several weeks as well. What is notable about this link is that it's CNN – we have had absolutely no success in interesting the American media in Nicole's disappearance. I'm still not entirely clear how they pulled it off, though I presume the backing of the American mystery author (watch the story to see what I'm talking about) may have helped.

Tomorrow marks the fifth anniversary of my father's death. He was a high profile reporter in Ottawa. When he died, Stephen Harper stood up and spoke of him in Parliament. I continue to wonder how different this search might have been had he still been alive. I suspect we may still not have found anything, but I think the government may have helped us look a bit harder.

On a more positive (and slightly off-topic) note, my other sister is visiting this weekend and it is always a pleasure to spend time with her. It was good to catch up on things and we enjoyed the unseasonably warm weather here in Toronto.



November 17th (Evening):

The search for 17-year old Mariam Makhniashvili right here in my Toronto neighbourhood continues to intensify. The police have not only started interviewing all the students at the school, they are also going door to door and visiting 6,000 people in nearby houses, apartments and condos. In addition to that they've combed through over two dozen local library computers AND have rummaged through the garbage deposited at the dump in case their search panicked anyone into discarding valuable evidence.

Did I mention they were scouring local parks with helicopters and infrared sensors?

*THIS* is the kind of activity we wanted to see in Syria. We shouldn't have had to pay to put this search into the news, the search itself should have been news for the people of Hama and Damascus. If the police and government really cared about tourists and the safety of women travelling in Syria, they would put forth these kinds of efforts. No excuses, no single detective wandering around talking to people. Real police work and real effort. And then if we can't find Nicole? Well at least we did what we could and can walk away without guilt.

Much like Nicole, Mariam disappeared into thin air with no witnesses or evidence. Which just goes to show that it's not something that just happens in Syria. The lack of results has me wondering if it's like our search - at first we concentrated on where we expected Nicole to be the day she disappeared, travelling to Ibn Wardan - but then as that proved fruitless, we came to realize that she probably never left the hotel, or that something else happened (offered a ride, change of plans) that we've missed. And just like us, the passage of two months makes evidence gathering that much more difficult. I'm watching this case very closely.

A family friend noticed another travel article on Syria and sent it our way. This article is particularly upsetting since it specifically refers to the Cairo Hotel and how safe it is in Syria. To be fair, it's safer than I expect most people think, but one shouldn't blindly visit without knowing the risks. Nicole knew the risks, which is why we're so surprised that she disappeared without any clues or uproar.

A reporter from the Toronto Star contacted me a few weeks ago. She interviewed me back in 2007 and now that she was in the Middle East, she wanted to follow up. I appreciate the media folks who keep tabs on their stories like this. For now we don't have too much new news to report, but hopefully we will one day.

Current Mood: worried
Current Music: Gerard McMann - "Cry Little Sister"
Tags: jacqueline nicole vienneau missing syria

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