Rough Weekend for 'Broken' Freed Family

Joshua Boyle says he and his wife didn't think the adjustment to freedom would be so hard
By Linda Hervieux,  Newser Staff
Posted Oct 16, 2017 11:50 AM CDT
Freedom Isn't Easy, Says Ex-Taliban Hostage
Joshua Boyle and son Jonah play in the garden at his parents house in Smiths Falls, Ontario, on Saturday.   (Lars Hagberg/The Canadian Press via AP)

After five years in captivity, freedom is a lot harder than Joshua Boyle expected. The Canadian man tells CNN he and his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, and their three children are suffering. "We're pretty broken and we didn't expect this," he says. After arriving in Toronto Friday night, the family spent a rocky weekend trying to adjust. Boyle, 34, says he and Coleman, 31, endured their confinement by "telling ourselves that it's all going to be OK, because as soon [as] we get out of here ... we're going to be so happy. The big surprise we didn't see coming is that's not the case, because we're both pretty distressed ... we didn't realize that our family was this broken." Their middle child, Noah, 2, is having the roughest time, per the Star.

Despite toys strewn around Boyle's parents' Ontario home and doting family members to play with, the toddler frequently cries and screams. "He's not having a temper tantrum," Boyle says. The boy is scared of everyday objects, and the color orange. He panicked when police showed up wearing boots, "because the only people he has seen wear boots are people who are coming in to kick you," Boyle says. Meanwhile, the Taliban denies Boyle's claims Haqqani kidnappers raped Coleman and killed their infant daughter, per the New York Times. The child died during a miscarriage, a rep says, and Coleman was never separated from her husband, not "even for a few minutes—and the reason for that was to avoid any suspicions." (More Joshua Boyle stories.)

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