Ex-hostage tells of forced abortion, disputes rescue report
OTTAWA — Caitlan Coleman, the 31-year-old American woman who gave birth to her three children while held hostage by the Haqqani network, says she is breaking her silence to dispute statements made about her family’s captivity and the day they were rescued.
“Right now everybody’s shunting blame and making claims. Pakistan says, no they were never in Pakistan, until the end. The U.S. says, no they were always in Pakistan; it was Pakistan’s responsibility. But neither of those are true,” she told the Star.
During her first interview Monday since being rescued 12 days ago, Coleman added crucial details about the kidnapping case that has captured international attention. While she said she is not ready to speak publicly about all aspects of her captivity, she is certain they were held in both Afghanistan and Pakistan and their rescue Oct. 11 did not come immediately after crossing the border into Pakistan. “We had been in Pakistan for more than a year at that point,” she said.
Coleman was kidnapped with her Canadian husband Joshua Boyle in October 2012 in Afghanistan. They were held for five years by the Talibanlinked Haqqani network before their dramatic rescue by Pakistani forces. She was pregnant when she was taken captive.
Until reaching out to the Star, Coleman has shunned publicity, with the exception of Saturday night emails to her hometown paper about her memories of growing up in Pennsylvania.
Her 34-year-old husband, however, began speaking just hours after landing in Toron-
to, telling journalists at the airport that his wife had been raped and one of his daughters murdered.
His statement confirmed what the couple had darkly alluded to in letters and “proof-oflife” videos the captors released. Coleman said she had been “defiled” in front of her children and Boyle wrote vaguely of a terminated pregnancy.
Coleman said Monday that the forced abortion was in retaliation for Boyle refusing the Haqqani network’s efforts to recruit him. “They were very angry because Joshua had been asked to join them, to work for them, and he said no,” she said. “They killed her by dosing the food. They put massive doses of estrogen in the food.”
High levels of estrogen in a pregnancy can force a miscarriage and Coleman says once she lost her baby, whom the couple named “Martyr,” the kidnappers boasted about what they had done. The Taliban last week issued a statement refuting the claim, saying she miscarried naturally.
Coleman said they kept her other two pregnancies secret, and Boyle delivered both her youngest son and daughter by flashlight as she quietly laboured in pain.
Coleman spoke to the Star Monday alone on the grounds of Ottawa’s Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario, as her husband cared for their sons, aged 4 and 2. All three of her children, including her months-old daughter, who slept in her lap for part of the interview, have been undergoing test at the hospital and still adapting to a life free from captivity. She said she’s aware of criticism on social media and elsewhere calling both her and Boyle reckless for travelling in Afghanistan while she was pregnant and then getting pregnant three more times while captive.
“It was a decision we made. We did think about it and talk about it and it’s difficult to explain all the reasons, but for me, a large part was the fact that it has always been important to me to have a large family,” she said. “This took our life away from us — this captivity with no end in sight. And so I felt that it was our best choice at that time. We didn’t know if we would have that opportunity when we came back. We didn’t know how long it would be.”
During the interview, she at times laughed at the ridiculousness of a memory — at other times she grew quiet or simply said, “no comment.” She has continued to wear a hijab since returning to Canada but declined Monday to speak about whether she has converted to Islam.
The couple’s willingness to talk so early after their harrowing ordeal is part of what makes this story unique. Canadian Colin Rutherford, who was released in January 2016 after five years in captivity, has still not spoken publicly about his captivity. Amanda Lindhout, who spent 460 days held hostage in Somalia before her release in 2009, would eventually write a bestselling book and give talks about her survival. But Coleman said she hoped by speaking out she could help tamper the politicking that is shaping the narrative of their kidnapping and rescue.
Pakistan’s army issued a statement hours after the young family was freed and safe in Islamabad that claimed they were alerted by U.S. agencies that the kidnappers were crossing from Afghanistan into northwestern Pakistan.
Coleman said they were moved quickly from Afghanistan to Pakistan after being kidnapped and the first six or seven months were among the most difficult.
“They first took us out of Afghanistan, it was several days drive. They took us to Miran Shah, in Pakistan, where we were kept for more than a year,” she said, adding that Boyle understood some Farsi, which helped them understand at times where they were. “It was very bad.” They named their oldest son Najaeshi Jonah. “Then we were moved to the north of Miran Shah, to the house of a man who said he was called Mahmoud. He was very nice to Najaeshi and would provide us with amenities we wouldn’t have otherwise,” she said.
In 2014 and 2015 they were moved often and it was during this time she says she had the forced abortion and was raped. “We had a pen they didn’t know about and we were taking little scraps of paper and trying to hand out notes to anyone and everyone that wasn’t one of the guards or commanders involved in killing Martyr,” she said. “But then they took us, separated us, and beat us and that was when the assault on me happened because they wanted us to stop.”
From there she says they were moved to Spin Ghar, Afghanistan, often drugged for the transport and put in the trunk of a vehicle.
“They were always saying you’ll go free in one week or two weeks and this was one of the times they said, ‘We’re going to this new place and one day, two day, maybe a week, you go free, you’re released.’ ”
They gave the houses nicknames, so the Spin Ghar home became, “House of One Day.” They were there for months.
“Then they built a custom-built house for us. It was still close, in Spin Ghar. It was not good, not bad. It had problems, but no big problems … After that we just stayed in a house for a short time, a day or two, because they were clearly running from something.”
In a place they called the Cat Hotel, as they believed it was a hotel, they could see the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It was there that Coleman says the kidnappers acquired a “jingle truck,” one of the brightly painted trucks adorned with bells that are ubiquitous on Pakistan’s roads. They were taken back into Pakistan. They spent their final months there in what they called “Dar el Musa” (House of Musa). She said they were held mainly in that house from about November 2016 until just two days before the rescue, when they were transferred to “the Mud House,” where the windows were covered with wet, packed dirt.
On Oct. 11, Coleman said she was put in the trunk of the kidnappers’ car, after which some sort of car chase and gun battle broke out before they were freed.
“Our first fear — why we were not poking our heads up and yelling for help — was our fear that it was another gang trying to kidnap us. Possibly just part of the Haqqani network fighting with another part. They’re all just bandits,” she said.
When she finally realized they were Pakistani forces and she was free, she doesn’t remember breaking down, or exactly how she reacted.
“I think I was mostly just in shock.”