An American woman who was rescued with her family last week by Pakistani troops has been rushed to hospital, her husband said.
Joshua Boyle told the Associated Press in an email that his wife, Caitlan Coleman, was admitted on Monday. His email did not specify why she was taken to the hospital.
“My wife has been through hell and she has to be my first priority right now,” Boyle wrote.
Boyle, Coleman and their three children were rescued on Wednesday, five years after the couple was abducted in Afghanistan on a backpacking trip. The children were born in captivity.
Boyle said after landing at Toronto’s airport on Friday that the Taliban-linked Haqqani network had killed an infant daughter and raped his wife during the years they were held.
In a prior email exchange with AP, Boyle did not respond to a question about the fourth child but later told Canadian broadcaster CBC that it was a forced abortion. The Taliban said in a statement it was a miscarriage.
On Monday, Boyle told AP that he and his wife had decided to have children even while held captive because they always planned to have a big family and decided: “Hey, let’s make the best of this and at least go home with a larger start on our dream family.”
Boyle told AP: “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.”
Boyle said their three children are now four, two and “somewhere around six months”.
The parents of Coleman have said they are elated she is free, but also angry at their son-in law for taking their daughter to Afghanistan.
“Taking your pregnant wife to a very dangerous place, to me and the kind of person I am, is unconscionable,” her father, Jim Coleman said, told ABC News.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
