Freed Canadian hostage says Taliban raped his wife, killed his daughter

Rescued from Taliban captivity, Canadian hostage recounts ordeal

Toronto, Oct. 14: Former hostage Joshua Boyle said upon arriving back in Canada that the Haqqani network in Afghanistan had killed his infant daughter and raped his wife during the years they were held in captivity.

Mr Boyle gave the statement shortly after landing in Canada late on Friday with his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and three young children.

The couple was rescued on Wednesday, five years after they had been abducted by the Taliban-linked extremist network while in Afghanistan as part of a backpacking trip. Ms Coleman was pregnant at the time and had four children in captivity. The birth of the fourth child had not been publicly known before Mr Boyle appeared before journalists at the Toronto airport.

“The stupidity and evil of the Haqqani network’s kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping ordinary villagers in Talibancontrolled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorising the murder of my infant daughter,” he said.

Mr Boyle said that his wife was raped by a guard who was assisted by his superiors. He asked for the Afghan government to bring them to justice.

He said that he was in Afghanistan to help villagers “who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where no NGO, no aid worker and no government has ever successfully been able to bring the necessary help.”

On the plane from London, Mr Boyle provided a written statement to the Associated Press saying his family has “unparalleled resilience and determination.”

The handwritten statement Boyle gave the AP expressed disagreement with US foreign policy.

“God has given me and my family unparalleled resilience and determination, and to allow that to stagnate, to pursue personal pleasure or comfort while there is still deliberate and organised injustice in the world would be a betrayal of all I believe, and tantamount to sacrilege,” he wrote.

He nodded to one of the state department officials and said, “Their interests are not my interests.”

He added that one of his children is in poor health and had to be force-fed by their Pakistani rescuers.

The family was able to leave the plane with their escorts before the rest of the passengers. There was a short delay before everyone else was allowed out.

“It will be of incredible importance to my family that we are able to build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home,” he said in his later statement at the airport. “To try to regain some portion of the childhood that they have lost.”