美国国家公共电台 NPR Canadian Man Details Horrors Family Endured In Years Held By Haqqani Network

 

RENEE MONTAGNE, HOST:

And an American-Canadian family are recovering in Ontario after being rescued from kidnappers² in Afghanistan. Joshua Boyle and his American wife, Caitlan Coleman, had been held captive by the Haqqani network since 2012. They were rescued by the Pakistani army this past week. The couple's three children were all born in captivity³. Boyle gave a brief statement after landing in Toronto.

JOSHUA BOYLE: The stupidity and the evil of the Haqqani network's kidnapping of a pilgrim and his heavily pregnant wife engaged in helping⁴ ordinary villagers in Taliban-controlled regions of Afghanistan was eclipsed only by the stupidity and evil of authorizing⁵ the murder of my infant daughter.

MONTAGNE: The Toronto Star's Michelle Shephard joins us now from Toronto. Boyle gave his first wide-ranging interview to her. Welcome.

MICHELLE SHEPHARD: Thank you.

MONTAGNE: Now, you sat down with Joshua Boyle at his parents' home yesterday. What did he tell you? What are some of the details that came out about their captivity?

SHEPHARD: He spoke⁶ a little bit. I think there are going to be more stories to come in the next week. But he spoke a little bit about how they were held - in the conditions with which they were held.

It's an incredible story when you think of these three children being held with them in cells he said, at times, were no bigger than a bathtub. Sometimes, they were held underground. They were moved from location to location, which is what we believe, at this point, was what was happening when they were dramatically rescued. And a shootout ensued on Wednesday, and they were...

MONTAGNE: Right. They were being moved from Afghanistan into - across the border to Pakistan.

SHEPHARD: Yeah, he said - when we spoke yesterday, he said he thought that he - over the five years, they had been held both in Afghanistan and Pakistan near the border region.

And when - Wednesday, when they were rescued, they were actually in the trunk of the car, which is often how they were brought back and forth⁷.

MONTAGNE: You know, one detail that emerged from your interview with him was a simple one but a kind of shocking one. They had nothing to read the whole time. So they had to be told that, you know, Donald Trump⁸ had been elected president.

SHEPHARD: That's right. That's right. And, you know, I - probably like you, I've covered various hostage stories.

And I've had some friends that actually have been kidnapped. And they often speak of the boredom⁹. And you can imagine for five years, especially with children, just having nothing. So he said it was very, very rare they got anything to read. Once, they had sort of slate¹⁰ with chalk. And they used that. But for the most part, they had nothing. So it was just after Trump's inauguration¹¹ that they were forced to do a proof-of-life video. And Josh said at that point, that's when he was told that Donald Trump was elected. And he actually said he thought it was a joke. He - they've been in this bubble for, you know, four years at that point. And the kidnapper¹ said, you know, you have to mention Donald Trump in this. And he didn't believe that he was president.

MONTAGNE: Boyle says his wife was raped¹² by a guard in his statement. You also spoke in your article of a forced abortion¹³. Is the daughter that he said was murdered the result of a forced abortion?

SHEPHARD: That's right. I think there was a lot of confusion when he made a statement at the airport Friday night after landing because he had said his daughter was murdered. He's referring to an incident - I believe it was in 2014 - that he claims that his wife was - had forced abortion. And that was the daughter that he speaks of.

MONTAGNE: Now, Caitlan Coleman's father - his wife's father has been very public about his anger asking, why did Joshua Boyle take his wife into such a dangerous place? That question is starting to come up now as the days go on. What did he say about the suggestion that he had, as it turned out, was an activist¹⁴ on behalf of a Guantanamo detainee.

SHEPHARD: Yeah.

MONTAGNE: He was once married to the sister of that detainee. I mean, what did he say about how he might've had some special mission?

SHEPHARD: He had said - it was the first time, again, on Friday night when he came back and he made that statement. He said that when they were in Afghanistan, they were pilgrims trying to help those in a Taliban-controlled region. He hasn't gone much further into that. His family knew that they were backpacking across Central Asia at that time. They didn't know that they were crossing over into Afghanistan. Yesterday, when I asked him on this, he said, you know, any suggestions that they were there for some other reason were just ridiculous and that he was far more a hippie. They did have a history - the couple - of doing charity work. And I think, you know, they were painfully naive¹⁵ in the area that they were going to. But I do expect he's going to talk more about that in coming days, too.

MONTAGNE: Well, in just the short time that we have left, this was clearly a horrendous¹⁶ five years. How are Caitlan and the children doing?

SHEPHARD: The children were great. I got to see them for the first time yesterday. And it was amazing - the series of firsts that they were experiencing. The elder son, Jonah, kept flushing the toilet. He had never seen a toilet that flushed. You can just imagine. They've had no other life than being a hostage. They were all born in captivity. The second youngest son - the younger son - he apparently¹⁷ experiences a lot of terror. He'll scream. I didn't see this, but he apparently will scream for part of the day. He's terrified of boots. Clearly, they're going to need - those two boys are going to need a lot of psychological care.

And I think the family's reaching out to get that now.

MONTAGNE: All right. Well, that's Michelle Shephard, national security reporter with The Toronto Star. Thank you very much for being with us.

SHEPHARD: Thanks for having me.

(SOUNDBITE OF AT THE END OF TIMES, NOTHING'S "THE GROUND AFTER A SUMMER RAIN")

1 kidnapper   

n.绑架者，拐骗者

参考例句：

• The kidnapper was shot dead then and there by the armed policeman.绑架者被武装警察当时当地击毙。
• The kidnapper strangled the child with a piece of string.绑票的人用一根绳子把这孩子勒死了。

2 kidnappers   

n.拐子，绑匪( kidnapper的名词复数 )

参考例句：

• They were freed yesterday by their kidnappers unharmed. 他们昨天被绑架者释放了，没有受到伤害。 来自《简明英汉词典》
• The kidnappers had threatened to behead all four unless their jailed comrades were released. 帮匪们曾经威胁说如果印度方面不释放他们的同伙，他们就要将这四名人质全部斩首。 来自《简明英汉词典》

3 captivity   

n.囚禁；被俘；束缚

参考例句：

• A zoo is a place where live animals are kept in captivity for the public to see.动物园是圈养动物以供公众观看的场所。
• He was held in captivity for three years.他被囚禁叁年。

4 helping   

n.食物的一份&adj.帮助人的，辅助的

参考例句：

• The poor children regularly pony up for a second helping of my hamburger. 那些可怜的孩子们总是要求我把我的汉堡包再给他们一份。
• By doing this, they may at times be helping to restore competition. 这样一来, 他在某些时候,有助于竞争的加强。

5 authorizing   

授权，批准，委托( authorize的现在分词 )

参考例句：

• Letters of Marque: Take letters from a warning friendly power authorizing privateering. 私掠许可证：从某一个国家获得合法抢劫的证书。
• Formal phavee completion does not include authorizing the subsequent phavee. 阶段的正式完成不包括核准随后的阶段。

6 spoke   

n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说

参考例句：

• They sourced the spoke nuts from our company.他们的轮辐螺帽是从我们公司获得的。
• The spokes of a wheel are the bars that connect the outer ring to the centre.辐条是轮子上连接外圈与中心的条棒。

7 forth   

adv.向前；向外，往外

参考例句：

• The wind moved the trees gently back and forth.风吹得树轻轻地来回摇晃。
• He gave forth a series of works in rapid succession.他很快连续发表了一系列的作品。

8 trump   

n.王牌，法宝；v.打出王牌，吹喇叭

参考例句：

• He was never able to trump up the courage to have a showdown.他始终鼓不起勇气摊牌。
• The coach saved his star player for a trump card.教练保留他的明星选手，作为他的王牌。

9 boredom   

n.厌烦，厌倦，乏味，无聊

参考例句：

• Unemployment can drive you mad with boredom.失业会让你无聊得发疯。
• A walkman can relieve the boredom of running.跑步时带着随身听就不那么乏味了。

10 slate   

n.板岩，石板，石片，石板色，候选人名单；adj.暗蓝灰色的，含板岩的；vt.用石板覆盖，痛打，提名，预订

参考例句：

• The nominating committee laid its slate before the board.提名委员会把候选人名单提交全体委员会讨论。
• What kind of job uses stained wood and slate? 什么工作会接触木头污浊和石板呢？

11 inauguration   

n.开幕、就职典礼

参考例句：

• The inauguration of a President of the United States takes place on January 20.美国总统的就职典礼于一月二十日举行。
• Three celebrated tenors sang at the president's inauguration.3位著名的男高音歌手在总统就职仪式上演唱。

12 raped   

v.以暴力夺取，强夺( rape的过去式和过去分词 )；强奸

参考例句：

• A young woman was brutally raped in her own home. 一名年轻女子在自己家中惨遭强暴。 来自辞典例句
• We got stick together, or we will be having our women raped. 我们得团结一致，不然我们的妻女就会遭到蹂躏。 来自辞典例句

13 abortion   

n.流产，堕胎

参考例句：

• She had an abortion at the women's health clinic.她在妇女保健医院做了流产手术。
• A number of considerations have led her to have a wilful abortion.多种考虑使她执意堕胎。

14 activist   

n.活动分子，积极分子

参考例句：

• He's been a trade union activist for many years.多年来他一直是工会的积极分子。
• He is a social activist in our factory.他是我厂的社会活动积极分子。

15 naive   

adj.幼稚的，轻信的；天真的

参考例句：

• It's naive of you to believe he'll do what he says.相信他会言行一致，你未免太单纯了。
• Don't be naive.The matter is not so simple.你别傻乎乎的。事情没有那么简单。

16 horrendous   

adj.可怕的，令人惊惧的

参考例句：

• He described it as the most horrendous experience of his life.他形容这是自己一生中最可怕的经历。
• The mining industry in China has a horrendous safety record.中国的煤矿工业具有令人不安的安全记录。

17 apparently   

adv.显然地；表面上，似乎

参考例句：

• An apparently blind alley leads suddenly into an open space.山穷水尽，豁然开朗。
• He was apparently much surprised at the news.他对那个消息显然感到十分惊异。