President Donald Trump announced on Truth Social that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton graduate student kidnapped by Hezbollah in 2023, has been released.
“I am pleased to report that Elizabeth Tsurkov, a Princeton Student, whose sister is an American Citizen, was just released by Kata’ib Hezbollah (MILITANT Hezbollah), and is now safely in the American Embassy in Iraq after being tortured for many months. I will always fight for JUSTICE, and never give up. HAMAS, RELEASE THE HOSTAGES, NOW,” Trump wrote.
Tsurkov, an Israeli-Russian dual citizen, was held hostage for more than 900 days after she disappeared in Baghdad while on a research trip, the Associated Press reports.
The graduate student told the outlet that she was able to speak to her sister over the phone upon her release. “I heard her voice for the first time in 2 1/2 years and still couldn’t believe it, and I just melted on the floor,” she said. “I heard her voice and she heard mine, and it was the most joyous experience of my life, and we both started sobbing and screaming.”
In a statement on X about her sister’s release, Emma Tsurkov said the family is “so thankful to President Trump and his Special Envoy, Adam Boehler.”
“If Adam had not made my sister’s return his personal mission, I do not know where we would be,” she said. “We also want to thank Josh Harris and his team at the US Embassy in Baghdad for the support they provided to our sister and the team at the nonprofit Global Reach who advocated relentlessly for my sister’s safe return.”
A spokesperson for Iraq’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces confirmed Tsurkov’s release, stating, “After distinguished security and intelligence efforts, and with high coordination with several internal entities at a significant level of national and humanitarian responsibility, the competent authorities were able, on September 9th, to locate her place of detention, reach it, and subsequently hand her over to the United States Embassy, which will, in turn, facilitate her reunion with her sister, who holds American citizenship.”
