Freed after years in captivity, Canadian Joshua Boyle, his American wife and their three children have arrived in Toronto Friday night.
Boyle and wife, Caitlan Coleman, were abducted five years ago while travelling in Afghanistan and were being held by the Haqqani network. Coleman was pregnant with their first child when they were captured by a militant group linked to the Taliban. In captivity she gave birth to three children — two boys and a girl.
Coleman, wearing a tan-coloured headscarf, sat in the aisle of the business class cabin. She nodded wordlessly when she confirmed her identity to an Associated Press reporter on board the flight.
In the two seats next to her were her two older children. In the seat beyond that was Boyle, with their youngest child in his lap. U.S. state department officials were on the plane with them.
Boyle gave The Associated Press a handwritten statement expressing disagreement with U.S. 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 organized 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 said that one of his children is in poor health and had to be force fed by their Pakistani rescuers.
‘Long-awaited return’
Global Affairs Canada welcomed the family’s return.
“Today, we join the Boyle family in rejoicing over the long-awaited return to Canada of their loved ones,” the ministry said in a statement that asked for privacy for the family.
“Canada has been actively engaged on Mr. Boyle’s case at all levels, and we will continue to support him and his family now that they have returned.”
It’s not clear where the family is heading. Boyle’s parents live in the Ottawa area, and prior to the kidnapping the couple had been living in Perth-Andover, N.B.
Pakistan said Thursday it had rescued the family after the captors moved them across the border from Afghanistan.
Coleman is from Stewartstown, Pa. In an interview with ABC News on Friday, her father, Jim Coleman, said he is angry at Boyle for taking her to Afghanistan.
“Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me, and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable,” he said.
Joshua Boyle, centre, and his wife, Caitlan Coleman, with two of their three children, are seen in a file photo posted by the Taliban in December 2016. The couple were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012. (Taliban/Twitter via Reuters)
Earlier, Patrick Boyle said the family was safe “but exhausted.”
He told reporters his son had been hit by shrapnel during the events leading to their release, which reportedly involved dozens of Pakistani army members. Joshua Boyle suffered a leg injury as a result, his father said.
Boyle’s mother told CBC News the family is still facing “really tough times.”
“They kept themselves strong for so long, for each other and for the kids,” Linda Boyle said. “I think it’s going to catch up with them, and they’re probably going to have some real crashes, I expect, but we’re here for them.”
Rescue near Afghan-Pakistan border
Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland, who has met with Joshua Boyle’s parents in the past, said Thursday that their son and his family had endured an “absolutely horrible ordeal.”
Freeland refused to describe the circumstances of the release, citing security reasons, but said Canada had been working with the U.S., Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, speaking in Mexico City, thanked U.S. and Pakistani officials for their efforts in freeing Boyle and his wife and children.
“We’re pleased that the ordeal they’ve been through over these past years has finally come to an end,” Trudeau said Thursday night during a news conference.
Linda and Patrick Boyle said Thursday that they couldn’t be more excited for the family to return to Canada. (Adrian Wyld/Canadian Press)
A security source told Reuters that the location of the family’s eventual rescue was near the town of Kohat, some 60 kilometres inside Pakistan, along the northwestern border with Afghanistan.
Agents from Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence spy agency and soldiers attempted to intercept the vehicle the family was in, but it sped away, according to the security source.
“Our troops fired at the vehicle and burst its tires,” the senior Pakistani security source told Reuters, declining to be identified because he is not authorized to speak openly to the media.
After the rescue, a change in itinerary was reportedly required, at the behest of Joshua Boyle.
Jim Coleman said Friday he didn’t understand why, according to reports, Boyle didn’t let his family leave on a U.S. military plane. Coleman said if he saw an American aircraft, he’d be “running for it.”
Boyle’s father said his son was philosophically opposed to an initial plan that would have involved the plane landing at Bagram, Afghanistan, where the U.S. has held detainees for years without charge during its battles against the Taliban and al-Qaeda militants.
The plane instead was routed to Islamabad, Pakistan. They later travelled to England before continuing on to Canada.