Taped to the wall of Linda and Patrick Boyle’s home is a photo of their first grandsons, a screen grab of the two little boys taken from Monday’s hostage video where their son Joshua Boyle and his American wife Caitlan Coleman plead for release.

“We are delighted to see these first pictures of our grandsons with their mum and dad,” Boyle’s parents wrote in a statement released to the Toronto Star and NPR Wednesday morning.

“It is an indescribable emotional sense one has watching a grandson making faces at the camera, while hearing our son’s leg chains clanging up and down on the floor as he tries to settle his son. It is unbelievable that they have had to shield their sons from their horrible reality for four years. Josh described this to us in a letter as play acting the film Life is Beautiful, pretending their signs of captivity are just part of a game they are playing with the guards and captors,” they wrote.

“It is simply heartbreaking to watch both boys so keenly observing their new surroundings in a makeshift film studio, while listening to their mother describe how they were made to watch her being defiled.”

The video uploaded directly to YouTube Monday was the first time the captors had permitted “proof of life” images of the two young boys. Coleman also mentions these are her “surviving” children, indicating she had been pregnant a third time but lost the baby.

Boyle, 33, married his longtime friend Coleman, an American and now 31, a year before they set off backpacking through Central Asia. They had not told their families they were crossing into Afghanistan and it is believed they were taken near Kabul and have been held since disappearing in October 2012 by the Taliban-linked Haqqani network.

An August video of the couple warning they would be killed coincided with an Aug. 29 Afghan court decision to sentence Anas Haqqani, the son of the group’s founder, to death for his role in helping raise funds for the network.

Boyle and Coleman appeal to both outgoing U.S. President Barack Obama and incoming president elect Donald Trump in their video Monday — asking Obama to think about his “legacy” and urging Trump to make a deal.

Peter Bergen, director of the New America’s International Security program wrote in his CNN blog Tuesday that Canada and the U.S. should negotiate as Anas Haqqani is not regarded as a leader. “The incoming Trump administration will have tremendous leverage over the Afghan government, which is hoping for a continued American presence in the country.”

Coleman appeals directly to the U.S. and Afghan government in their video and call their plight “Kafkaesque.”

“Caity could not have used a more accurate term,” the Boyles write in their statement. “Bleak and seemingly hopeless while persevering against cold bureaucratic policies and organizations. Hopeless perhaps, yet hoping still … We wouldn’t expect anything else from Josh and Caity, nor from most other Canadians and Americans.”

Linda and Patrick Boyle’s full statement to the Star

The December 3rd YouTube video was first brought to our attention Monday afternoon by the media very shortly after Taliban Media’s posting on Twitter.

It has obviously been difficult for us since the death threat video was released by the captors at the end of August. In Monday’s video, their captors again threaten all four of them — in their written words and in Caity’s own voice. They continue to choose to communicate that publicly, not with the families.

We are delighted to see these first pictures of our grandsons with their mum and dad. At the same time, we are saddened to hear our daughter-in-law confirm that another child has died as a result of this ordeal.

It is an indescribable emotional sense one has watching a grandson making faces at the camera, while hearing our son’s leg chains clanging up and down on the floor as he tries to settle his son. It is unbelievable that they have had to shield their sons from their horrible reality for four years. Josh described this to us in a letter as play acting the film Life is Beautiful, pretending their signs of captivity are just part of a game they are playing with the guards and captors.

It is simply heartbreaking to watch both boys so keenly observing their new surroundings in a makeshift film studio, while listening to their mother describe how they were made to watch her being defiled.

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Neither Josh nor Caity address their families in this video. In all past communications, they have been made to say that the families need to do what they can to get their governments to do what is asked. This new video confirms what all other messaging has always said, that the captors’ demands are made to governments. In the last video in August, Josh and Caity are made to plead with both of their governments to persuade the Afghanistan government to spare the lives of prisoners held by Afghanistan on charges of assisting terrorism.

From their vantage point, Caity could not have used a more accurate term than Kafkaesque. Bleak and seemingly hopeless while persevering against cold ‎bureaucratic policies and organizations. Hopeless perhaps, yet hoping still. Recognizing the darkness, but choosing to search for light. Resulting feelings of senselessness, disorientation, and helplessness. The absence of a clear course of action to escape a complex and bizarre situation that seems it may be somewhere between fiction and reality. Overpowered and constrained by others beyond their control, but striving to break through nonetheless. We wouldn’t expect anything else from Josh and Caity, nor from most other Canadians and Americans.

This video confirms the captors want to bring this to an end soon. They prefer to reach ‎an understanding during this brief period of the American presidential transition. It also confirms the seriousness and immediacy of the captors’ threats to our four family members. We are hopeful and we pray that all governments involved‎, including Afghanistan and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, can bring this to a safe resolution soon.

— Patrick & Linda Boyle

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