American Caitlan Coleman recounts her years long captivity

American Caitlan Coleman, the wife of Canadian Joshua Boyle, recounted her harrowing ordeal while under the captivity of militants for nearly five years with Canada's The Star. 

Caitlan Coleman and Joshua Boyle were kidnapped during a backpacking trip in Afghanistan in 2012, and had three children while in captivity.

Remembering the day she was freed in a joint Pakistan Army and intelligence operation, Coleman said she was put in the trunk of the kidnappers' car, after which there was "some sort of car chase and gun battle" before they were freed.

“Our first fear — why we were not poking our heads up and yelling for help — was that it was another gang trying to kidnap us. Possibly just part of the Haqqani network fighting with another part. They’re all just bandits,” she said.

She added that when one is held a prisoner for so long, one becomes suspicious of everything.

Coleman further said she does not remember breaking down or how she reacted once she was set free by Pakistani forces.

“I think I was mostly just in shock," said Coleman, in what is her first talk with the media after being rescued.

Her husband spoke soon after arriving in Canada and has spoken multiple times to the media, detailing his ordeal.

Caitlan told the Canadian publication that she is aware of the criticism on social media and elsewhere calling the US-Candian couple reckless for travelling in war-torn Afghanistan while she was pregnant.

Talking about her kidnapping, Coleman said the two were held in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to Caitlan, claims made by both US and Pakistan regarding the couple's captivity were not accurate.

Elaborating further about the kidnapping, she said they were first taken to a location which was several days' drive away, and where they were kept for more than a year.

"It was very bad. My husband and I were separated at that time. He wasn’t allowed to see Najaeshi [eldest son] or spend any time with us.”

Coleman, continuing the story of her life in captivity, said they were moved to a house of a man called Mahmoud.

"He was very nice to Najaeshi and would provide us with amenities we wouldn’t have otherwise. He would take Najaeshi out to get him sunlight and nobody else did that at any other point," said the former hostage.

Caitlan said the family was often moved between 2014 and 2015 and it was during this time that she had a forced abortion and was raped.

Speaking about the abortion, Caitlan said this was retaliation for her husband not joining their captors. "They were very angry because Joshua had been asked to join them, to work for them, and he said no," she said. 

"They killed her by dosing the food. They put massive doses of estrogen in the food," The Star quoted Caitlan as saying about the child she had lost.

Caitlan said that following this, the couple decided to keep the next two pregnancies secret and the babies were delivered by her husband using a flashlight.

Caitlan said she had been assaulted because the Taliban did not want the couple to contact people who were not their guards or captors. The couple, according to Caitlan, had a pen and little scraps of paper and were trying to hand out notes to anyone and everyone that was not one of the guards or commanders who had killed their child.

Also during this period, Caitlan said the family was moved to Spin Ghar, southeast of Kabul in Afghanistan. Coleman said the family was often drugged for transport and put in the trunk of a vehicle.

“They were always saying you’ll go free in one week or two weeks and this was one of the times they said, ‘We’re going to this new place and one day, two day, maybe a week, you go free, you’re released.’ ”

The American-Canadian couple gave the houses they were kept in nicknames, the house in Spin Ghar became "House of One Day." The family was held captive there for months.

During the interview, Coleman said that a special house was built for them.

“Then they built a custom-built house for us. It was still close, in Spin Ghar. It was not good, not bad. It had problems, but no big problems … After that, we just stayed in a house for a short time, a day or two, because they were clearly running from something."

"It was so bizarre."

Another location the hostages were kept in was referred to as Cat Hotel and they could see the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan from the location.

The hostage also recalled how the militants acquired a truck, which was then used to transport them to Pakistan.

Coleman and her husband Boyle then spent their final months of captivity in a location they referred to as “Dar el Musa”.

“Outside every day they were doing some training, or something was going on, and some guy was shouting and we laughed because whoever Musa was, he was not doing a good job,” she said.

Elaborating further, she said they were held in the house until just two days before they were rescued, when they were transferred to the "Mud House".

The Pakistan Army announced on October 12 that the hostages had been "recovered... from terrorist custody through an intelligence-based operation by Pakistani troops."

US intelligence services had been tracking the movement of the hostages and informed their Pakistani partners when they were moved across the Pak-Afghan border into Kurram Agency on October 11, 2017.