A Syrian man who sought amnesty from the nation's ongoing civil war has been stuck at Istanbul's main international airport for more than a year, in a real-life echo of the Tom Hanks movie "The Terminal".

فَمَنْ عَفَا وَأَصْلَحَ فَأَجْرُهُ عَلَى اللَّهِ إِنَّهُ لَا يُحِبُّ الظَّالِمِينَ (الشورى 40)@RT_Erdogan pic.twitter.com/ONyZchmaPg

— Fadi Mansour (@Fadimans0ur) March 14, 2016

The rights group said Mansour had initially left Syria in 2012 for Lebanon, before moving to Turkey, but after he was refused entry to Malaysia and returned to Istanbul on March 15 last year, he was detained in the "problematic passengers room" at Ataturk airport. In an appeal for help earlier this week, Amnesty said it was concerned about the conditions he was staying in at the airport.

Thanks God الحمدلله pic.twitter.com/YriI31wu9g

— Fadi Mansour (@Fadimans0ur) March 19, 2016

It said the lighting in the "problematic passengers room" is always on and quoted Fadi as saying his "only dream right now... is to sleep with the lights off". Fadi, reported to be aged in his twenties briefly left Istanbul to try to go to Lebanon in November, Amnesty said, but was refused entry and returned. The Turkish prime minister's office declined to comment on the case. In 2004's "The Terminal", Hanks plays a man who becomes trapped at New York's JFK airport when his home country collapses into revolution. The film was in turn inspired by the case of Mehran Karimi Nasseri, an Iranian who spent 18 years stranded at Paris's Charles de Gaulle airport. On his Twitter account, Fadi has posted a few pictures of the airport and, on Wednesday, a picture of a hamburger.

Some great news - the refugee stuck at Atatürk Airport for a year has apparently been allowed to leave. https://t.co/fLiyHLDSRi

— Zia Weise (@ZiaWeise) March 19, 2016