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The recently freed Canadian captive says the Taliban raped his wife and killed his daughter

Dennis Green   

The recently freed Canadian captive says the Taliban raped his wife and killed his daughter
Politics1 min read

Joshua Boyle

Reuters/Mark Blinch

Joshua Boyle speaking to reporters.

Days after being freed from five years spent in captivity by the Taliban, Joshua Boyle revealed more harrowing details about his and his family's captivity.

Speaking to reporters after landing in Toronto in his native Canada, Boyle said his wife Caitlin Coleman was raped by the Haqqani, an Afghan insurgent group, while they were prisoners, and one of their infant children was killed.

Boyle and Coleman were captured by the Haqqani while backpacking in Afghanistan five years ago.

Coleman was pregnant at the time, and the couple had four children in captivity. Three survived, though Boyle told the AP Friday that one was in poor health at the time of their rescue.

Boyle also elaborated on the reason he and Coleman were in Afghanistan in the first place: to aid " the most neglected minority group in the world" in the remote villages in Taliban-controlled territory where other aid workers won't go due to the danger.

Boyle said "stupidity and evil" by the Tailban for their capture was "eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing the murder of my infant daughter."

He also said that the rape of his wife was "not as a lone action, by one guard, but assisted by the captain of the guard and supervised by the commandant."

The family was freed on Wednesday after the US tipped off Pakistani authorities of a plan to move them into the country.

Boyle said the family will now "build a secure sanctuary for our three surviving children to call a home to try to regain some portion of the childhood they have lost."

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