A Canadian man who was held captive by the Taliban for five years thought his captors were joking when they told him Donald Trump was president. Buddy, same.
Joshua Boyle and his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, were recently released after being captured while on a hiking trip through Afghanistan in 2012.
They were told about America’s new president while filming a ‘proof-of-life’ video that was sent to investigators and their family.
“It didn’t enter my mind that he was being serious,” Boyle told the Toronto Star.
The couple were rescued after a dramatic car chase near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, with security forces able to shot the tires of the vehicle transporting the family to a new, more secret location.
They had four children during their time in captivity, revealing when they were rescued that their captors had murdered one of their children. The others – Jonah, 4, Noah, 2, and Grace, just a couple of months old – were all rescued with their parents, and are now enjoying the fascinating aspects of a life not in captivity: flushing toilets, wooden trains, and vegetable gardens.
You can read the Toronto Star’s profile on Boyle (Coleman declined to be interviewed) here.
