For weeks the trail of the 19th Syrian had gone cold.

He and 18 other Syrians were being held in Australian-run detention centres, but he was the only one the Federal Government managed to persuade to return home.

He was known as EDE 043 — an identifier assigned to him based on the boat he arrived on — but his real name is Eyad.

The chicken farmer fled his village in Syria's Daraa province more than two years ago, leaving his pregnant wife behind with family, with a plan of reaching the safe haven of Australia and then sending for her.

He made it to Christmas Island by boat on August 4, 2013 and was later transferred to Manus Island.

Eyad was repatriated from Manus back to Syria in August this year. Contact with him was lost.

Lateline can reveal however that 29-year-old Eyad is alive and after a long journey back to Syria, where he says he was jailed and tortured, he has made it home to his wife and the daughter who was born in his absence.

More than 220,000 people have already died in Syria's civil war and more than 4 million people have fled the country.

Agencies like the International Organisation for Migration and the United Nations do not facilitate the return of Syrians to the war zone.

But emails between Department of Immigration employees that were obtained under Freedom of Information by The Guardian show Australia has been encouraging Syrians in detention to go home.

"I was very open and frank with the transferees, I described the options that they have and I was clear that they would not be settled in Australia or a third country," one email states. "The transferees were visibly upset and quite anxious. "They were quite adamant that I would be sending them home to their death."

In the search to find out what happened to Eyad, Lateline spoke to a detainee on Manus Island who was friends with him.

The man, who Lateline has chosen not to name, said Australian authorities are continuing to exert pressure on Syrians to return home.

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He said that message was given to him as recently as two weeks ago.

"Anything with immigration and the Transfield, they tell me, 'Why you didn't go back to Syria? Why you stay here?" he said.

"I say, 'I cannot go back to Syria because when I enter Syria I will be dead'."

He said Eyad became sick with kidney stones while he was on Manus Island and was convinced he was going to die.

"He want to leave for Syria... he say I don't want to be dead in this compound jail here in Manus Island," he said.

Back to Syria: The journey home

And so, just over a month ago, Eyad was given $US2,310 by the Australian Government and flown off Manus Island.

Map Eyad's journey back to Syria

Escorted by two Australian Immigration Department officials, they flew with him first to Singapore, then on to Qatar and Jordan, before putting him on a plane to fly home alone to the Syrian capital, Damascus.

From there he sent a message to another friend in an Australian-run detention centre.

"I'm leaving now. I'm going out of range. Please pray for me," it said.

Two of the last people to have any contact with Eyad are fellow-Syrians being held at Villawood detention centre in Sydney.

One of them comes from the same Syrian village as Eyad and they made the journey from there to Australia together.

Eyad's house was destroyed during bombing in Al-Harra. ( Supplied )

The men in Villawood said Eyad had contacted them after he left Manus to say he was going to try and escape somewhere in transit but that plan failed and since he had landed in Damascus, his friends had heard nothing.

Daraa province, where Eyad is from, is one of the most dangerous provinces in the country.

It is where the Syrian uprising began in 2011.

Eyad's village of Al-Harra is at the epicentre of a conflict between a collection of opposition groups and the Syrian government army.

Elaine Pearson, the Australian director of Human Rights Watch, said crimes against humanity had been committed in Daraa.

"This is the equivalent of dropping someone in the middle of an active war zone," she said.

"We have documented barrel bombs being dropped by the Assad regime.

"There's been intense fights between the rebels and Syrian government forces.

"So this is certainly not a safe place to be sending someone back to."

EDE 043 makes contact

After meeting with the men at Villawood, Lateline received a phone call from someone who said they had been in contact with Eyad and they passed on a phone number.

Remarkably, more than a month after he was flown off Manus Island, Eyad was at the other end of the phone line.

Space to play or pause, M to mute, left and right arrows to seek, up and down arrows for volume. Watch Duration: 10 minutes 54 seconds 10 m Ken Roth from Human Rights Watch on the plight of Eyad

"My number is EDE 043," he said.

Eyad said he had tried to escape from the Australian immigration officials who had escorted him back to Syria.

"When I went to Qatar, in Doha airport, I tried to escape because I wanted to go to Turkey," he said.

"There is a refugee camp in Turkey and once I am in that refugee camp in Turkey, it is easy to get my wife and my daughter to come live with me in that refugee camp."

Eyad also explained why contact was lost with him for so long.

"I was worried when I get to Syria to be killed or put in jail, and this is what happened. As soon as I get to Damascus I was 20 days in jail," he said.

He was singled out by government officials when he landed in Damascus - his home village marking him as a dissenter.

Eyad's two-year-old daughter was born while he was in detention. ( Supplied )

Eyad said for 20 days he was tortured by Syrian government intelligence officers, who had found the cash given to him by the Australian Government and accused him of being a financier of the Syrian revolution.

"They hit me on my face and on my back, on my chest," he said.

Eyad was released and made the dangerous journey back to his hometown and his family. His house had been destroyed and his wife injured.

"Every day those Syrian planes come to our area ... those times they throw four barrels of explosives and they are killing children and you can watch the news and see for yourself," he said.

He said even now living in the middle of the war zone, his life is better than it was on Manus Island because he finally got to meet his two-year-old daughter.

"She is very clever and you can communicate very easily with her. She understands quickly," he said.

Eyad said he still feels anguish over the choice he had to make to come back to his wife and daughter, knowing the prospect of death was also a reality.

"One day I am expecting myself to be killed or arrested," he said.

"In Syria, there are two sects. Either you are a killer or you are the killed person."

Lateline contacted the Department of Immigration for comment.

The Department responded with a statement saying it "assists and supports the Government of Papua New Guinea with any individuals who seek to voluntarily return to their country of origin".

The Department said they do not comment on individual cases.