The son of this Hispanic mother disappeared in Libya. This is his story

(CNN) -

The phone call lasted only three minutes, but it gave Sara Espinoza the first evidence in six weeks that her son is alive.

His voice was shaky, she said, almost unrecognizable from the confident comments he posted on YouTube illustrating his trips abroad.

"Towards the end, I guess when they told him the call had to end, he started crying," he said.

His last words were: "I'm sorry, but I have to go. And merry Christmas."

Fernando Espinoza, a 29-year-old American professor and former US Navy submariner, disappeared in Libya on November 9, five weeks after arriving in the country to start a new job at an international school in Tripoli.

He had ventured south of the city for a weekend excursion to a desert oasis, but was detained for questioning upon his return.

And the frequent messages he sent to his mother stopped.

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Sara hoped to find her son and bring him home before Christmas Eve, the date of Libya's first presidential election in a decade.

But within days of the vote, the process has collapsed, pushing the country into conflict as the warring parties try to replace a government that is going to lose its mandate.

Now Sara is more worried than ever.

"I am relieved to have heard from you," she said of Tuesday's call, negotiated by the US embassy in Tunis and the Libyan authorities.

"But I also feel very sad because I know it is not okay. My son never cries."

The US embassy told CNN after the call that the State Department was handling the investigations.

When CNN asked for comment on Fernando's situation, the State Department said they were "aware of the arrest of a US citizen in Libya."

"We are monitoring the situation and due to privacy considerations, we will not go into details at this time," an official said.

Following the publication of this story, Libyan Deputy Foreign Minister Murad Hamaima told CNN that Fernando had been detained because his visa had expired and he had left the city without permission to travel to a dangerous area.

"He violated his visa limitation, and broke his contract with the school, and left without telling anyone where he was going. I don't think this is acceptable anywhere in the world," Hamaima said.

He said Libyan officials would have deported Fernando earlier, but when asked if he had been fully vaccinated against COVID-19, Fernando said no, according to Hamaima.

So she said that they gave Fernando his first dose and were waiting long enough to give him the second.

Back home in Miami, Sara doesn't know what to believe, and has spent the past six weeks thoroughly studying all the details of her son's journey in hopes of bringing him home.

Fernando Espinoza graduated from the United States Navy in 2012.

A weekend away

Sara had taken time off from work to join her son for a vacation in neighboring Tunis this week, as planned.

For many years, Sara raised Fernando as a single mother — they are very close, he is their only child.

And he's always had an adventurous streak, she says.

"He told me that he had been to about 47 countries in about seven years," he said.

"He has traveled a lot."

After staying grounded during the pandemic, Sara said Fernando took the opportunity to teach English in Tripoli at the International School of Martyrs or ISM International, a school for children from kindergarten through grade 12.

In early October, he flew to Libya and a month later, on November 4, took a weekend trip to the Idehan Ubari desert to see the Gaberoun oasis, he said, a salt lake that was home to a Bedouin tribe. whose abandoned town is now a local tourist spot.

From Tripoli, it is a treacherous journey south on highways through areas vulnerable to militia attacks.

The region is disputed by multiple groups, and experts have warned that it is not safe to travel through it.

Sara says the ISM administrator told her that his new employers had explicitly told Fernando not to venture outside of Tripoli because it was too dangerous.

But he went anyway.

Although Sara says she understands why Fernando went: "It's part of his nature to be adventurous like that."

Fernando Espinzoa on another of his trips: to Brazil in February 2021.

Fernando hired a driver for the weekend trip, his mother said, nine hours south of Tripoli.

From there, he would go to the desert oasis, about 93 kilometers west of the city of Sebha.

But Fernando didn't get to Sebha on time, according to the text messages he sent to his mother.

On the outskirts of Sebha, he and his driver were captured and held overnight, according to text messages Fernando sent his mother on November 5.

It's unclear who held him back, but he texted his mother saying he was fine.

November 5, 2021

FERNANDO

FERNANDO

SARA

FERNANDO

Following his release, Fernando continued his journey to the oasis and sent a photo of him looking happy and relaxed before losing touch again.

It was then that her mother started to really worry.

November 7, 2021

SARA

SARA

FERNANDO

SARA

FERNANDO

Fernando Espinoza described the Gaberoun oasis as "incredible" in text messages to his mother and sent her this photo of the lake.

It was the last time they'd ever texted together.

His fellow English teacher Vanessa Powell said mutual friends had told her that Fernando was questioned and detained on his return by plane to Tripoli on November 9.

Until Tuesday's call to her mother, none of her friends had heard from her in six weeks.

"He's not online. He's not on WhatsApp or messenger," Powell told CNN on Nov. 30.

"Nobody knows exactly where he is. We just have a kind of story that he's been arrested or he's in jail or something."

Powell met Fernando several years ago in Iraq, and said he stayed with her briefly in Cairo before flying to Tripoli to start his new job.

Fernando did not express any concerns for his safety in Libya before going, Powell told CNN, "because he has been doing this kind of work in developing countries for a while."

Fernando Espinoza and Vanessa Powell in Basra, Iraq, in 2019.

An unanswered phone

When Powell couldn't reach him by phone, he called Siraj Davis, a mutual friend who works as an English teacher in Iraq.

He told CNN that he messaged the school on Facebook and received a response on November 19: "He is not kidnapped. He is under arrest by the intelligence police. He is safe and well," the unsigned message read, that Davis provided to CNN.

"It is still being investigated. I do not have any other information. I am sorry I cannot help more," the message added.

The school declined multiple requests for comment from CNN and referred the questions to the embassy.

Sara said the school was initially helpful but now she tells him to phone the embassy as well.

Nov. 16

SARA

SARA

November 26

SARA

SARA

SARA

November 28

SARA

The United States has not had a diplomatic presence in Libya since July 2014, when it closed its embassy following violent clashes between Libyan militias, according to a US government website.

The US State Department warns US citizens not to travel to Libya due to the risk of "crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict."

Sara has stated that US consular officials in Tunisia told her that they had first spoken to Fernando on November 29, although she describes them as cautious about the information they shared.

They told her that Fernando "seems to be fine", and that he had asked for his medication and to speak with his mother.

There was silence, and on Monday US consular officials said they had been granted a second consular call, which she was able to join.

They warned him that the telephone lines in Libya are unreliable, so he had to prepare for disappointment in case the connection did not work.

So it was.

In the early hours of Tuesday, Sara heard her son's voice for the first time in more than a month.

He says the call was brief and that he could see that other people, probably officials, were listening on both sides.

"He apologized and said, 'I'm so sorry to have to put you through this,'" Sara recalled.

"I said, 'Don't worry ... we're doing what we can to get you out.'

Fernando told her that he spends most of his time in a room, except for occasional walks down a corridor.

He doesn't go outside, but sees sunlight through a window and takes his medication.

"He told me, 'Most of the time what I do is sleep, cry and pray,'" Sara told CNN.

Sara Espinoza with her son Fernando, who was about six years old at the time.

No charges have been filed

On Thursday, after the publication of this story, Hamaima, Libya's deputy foreign minister, said that the country had wanted to deport Fernando to Cairo, at the request of the US embassy.

But he said Fernando's vaccination status presented problems.

"We are doing everything possible to deport him as soon as possible. We have no need for him to be here," Hamaima said.

According to the website of the US embassy in Egypt, last updated on December 4, a negative PCR test taken within 72 hours of departure is sufficient for entry.

"If your embassy assures us that it is not necessary to vaccinate, that we can send it to Cairo with the PCR alone, we will," Hamaima said.

CNN has contacted the US embassy for further comment.

Sara said that she was not aware of the vaccination issue, and that she was under the impression that Fernando was fully vaccinated, but she has no proof.

At first, he said the embassy suggested he was being questioned about visa issues, but after six weeks he began to wonder if that was true.

An image of Fernando's stamped passport obtained by CNN shows that he entered Libya on a one-month visa on October 5, meaning that his visa would have expired around November 5, when he was in the desert.

His occupation as "teacher" is listed on the visa and he names ISM as his sponsor.

Sara admits that her son's background in the US Navy may have raised suspicions, but is adamant that he has done nothing wrong.

"What I know for sure about my son is that he loves to travel. And he loves, you know, visiting different countries and learning about different cultures."

Davis, who has taught English in Middle Eastern international schools for 12 years, said the lack of information was concerning, especially from the school that sponsored him to be there.

"This guy didn't blow up a gas station. He didn't break into a private security building of the Interior Ministry," he said.

"He didn't do anything that could be considered espionage. He just took a damn trip. That's right, a trip."

A deadline is coming

Fernando was not always an English teacher.

After graduating from high school, he enlisted in the United States Navy, but the life of a diver was not for him, his mother said.

It didn't give him enough opportunities to explore, he said.

So, after four years, he dedicated himself to teaching English in countries where he could spend his free time visiting historical places.

He has spent much of his adult life traveling the world.

His YouTube vlog contains videos of recent trips to Sudan, Panama and Brazil.

And in the three months before landing in Libya, he was in Spain, Italy, Egypt, Azerbaijan and Georgia, according to his mother.

Fernando was a frequent traveler who often visited historical places.

Due to their love of travel, Sara and Fernando often meet in places around the world.

"It's nice because it's like mother-son time and, you know, we can travel together and we like to travel to different places," she said.

But instead of meeting her son for the New Year, she's at home, calling anyone who can offer advice on what to do.

Sara said she spoke at length with representatives of the Richardson Center, a non-profit organization founded by former US Congressman and ambassador to the United Nations Bill Richardson, which has a long history of success in hostage negotiations and in the release of prisoners.

Mickey Bergman, vice president and chief executive of the group, told CNN that the Libyan government is not interested in holding a US citizen without charge.

"In all likelihood, this is a simple case of detention for questioning followed by a bureaucratic hold that can be resolved quickly and smoothly," he said, before Libyan authorities told CNN early Thursday morning that they planned to deport him.

Fernando and his mother Sara spent time closer to home, in Naples (Florida), while covid cases increased in the United States.

The suggestion that the Libyan government is just waiting to vaccinate her son is comforting to Sara, but she won't relax until she's home.

He is also concerned about the political turmoil in the country.

On December 24, the country was to hold its first presidential elections since the 2011 revolution, when Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi was captured and killed by rebel forces.

Emadeddin Badi, Libya's senior fellow and analyst at the Atlantic Council, told CNN from Tripoli on Tuesday that tensions in the city had risen in recent days amid maneuvers by armed groups to fill a possible leadership vacuum when the mandate of the Government of National Unity to lead effectively expires on Friday.

The Libyan High Electoral Commission wants to reschedule the vote for January 24, but it is unclear who will rule the country in the meantime.

"There is no clear decision on who should be in command after December 24," Badi said.

"What is definitive is that this ambiguous situation is already being exploited by the factions that have contributed to making the current crisis."

Stephanie Williams, special adviser to the UN secretary general for Libya, is in the country meeting with presidential candidates to try to salvage the UN-backed electoral process.

But Badi says that process is "inherently flawed," and that the month-long delay could only give political actors more time to capitalize on the uncertainty.

Sara says the sooner her son is released, the better.

Hamaima, the deputy foreign minister, said the government has no interest in retaining him.

"Whatever his embassy has for him, we are willing to do it, it is very simple."