Less than a week after being rescued after five years as a prisoner of the Taliban, Caitlin Coleman was rushed to a hospital in Ontario on Monday, according to her husband, Joshua Boyle.
“My wife has been through hell, and she has to be my first priority right now,” Boyle told the Associated Press over email. He did not elaborate about why Coleman had been admitted. Boyle (who is Canadian), Coleman, and their three children (who were born in captivity) were rescued last Wednesday by Pakistani security forces.
In the email, Boyle, who has previously told reporters that the Taliban raped his wife and forced her to have an abortion during her fourth pregnancy, also explained why he and his wife had children while prisoners of the fundamentalist group. As he explained in an email to the AP, the two planned to have a large family, so this was their reasoning:
“Hey, let’s make the best of this and at least go home with a larger start on our dream family. We’re sitting as hostages with a lot of time on our hands. We always wanted as many as possible, and we didn’t want to waste time. Cait’s in her 30s, the clock is ticking. Honestly we’ve always planned to have a family of 5, 10, 12 children … We’re Irish, haha.”
Jim Coleman, Caitlin’s father, has expressed happiness with daughter’s return but has also called Boyle’s decision to go backpacking in Afghanistan with his pregnant wife as “unconscionable.”
(Via USA Today)