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“It became dangerous for us to move,” said Bimbachi in an video posted by SITE Intelligence Group. “I don’t know how the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham got involved, but I think it’s a good thing they did. They came and they got us and we spent a few nice nights with my boys before they took them back to Lebanon.”

The specifics of what happened to Bimbachi and Moore during the month of January remain somewhat unclear to her; she’s not certain where the smuggling ended and the captivity began, or who it was that she was being held captive by. As the group was travelling through Syria, her and her sons were “bounced around” from safehouse to safehouse, and eventually handed off to the Syrian Salvation Government.

“Originally we were supposed to drive from Lebanon to the Turkish border,” said Moore, in the same video. “It went south in Lebanon, I just didn’t know it yet. As soon as the walking started I knew something wasn’t right. So we just kept on moving forward until we got here.”

She and Moore were separated for part of the time, Bimbachi said, and while she was put up in safehouses, Moore was held “in a jail.”

“I won’t say that I wasn’t scared,” but added that she was “well taken care of” and never felt like she was in any serious danger.

Moore returned home to Chatham on Wednesday, said Bimbachi.

The two had flown together from Turkey to Toronto before going their separate ways.

Photo by OMAR HAJ KADOUR / AFP/Getty Images

Whether what Bimbachi and Moore endured could be classified as a hostage-taking situation is largely a matter of interpretation. Canadian officials have said that they were in constant contact with the pair on WhatsApp and that the pair never expressed serious concern for their safety. But even relatively safe captivity is still captivity, and temporarily losing someone—a daughter, a sister, a mother— exacts an emotional toll.