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Monday, March 18, 2024

Kidnapped Canadian says child killed, wife raped in Afghanistan

A U.S-Canadian couple and their three children freed from captivity in Pakistan return to Canada, where the husband Joshua Boyle said one of his children had been murdered and his wife had been raped.

A U.S-Canadian couple freed in Pakistan this week, nearly five years after being abducted in Afghanistan, returned to Canada on Friday (October 13) where the husband said one of his children had been murdered and his wife had been raped.

American Caitlan Coleman and her Canadian husband, Joshua Boyle, were kidnapped while backpacking in Afghanistan in 2012 by the Taliban-allied Haqqani network. They arrived in Canada with three of their children.

“Obviously, 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,” Boyle told reporters after arriving at Toronto’s Pearson International Airport, wearing a black sweatshirt and sporting a beard.

Pakistani troops rescued the family in the northwest of the country, near the Afghan border, this week. The United States has long accused Pakistan of failing to fight the Taliban-allied Haqqani network.

“The stupidity and the evil of the Haqqani network in the kidnapping of a pilgrim … was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter,” Boyle said, reading from a statement, in a calm voice.