Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman were rescued this month after being held captive for five years by a Taliban-linked insurgent group. But what were two Western backpackers doing in Afghanistan in the first place?
"Looking back, I think it was two years before we saw any proof they were alive," recalls Joshua Boyle's friend Alex Edwards.
"I had assumed that they were probably dead, and tried to make peace with that."
Joshua Boyle and Caitlan Coleman were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012 after venturing into one of the most hostile regions of the war-torn country.
The last email from Boyle, sent to Coleman's parents on 8 October of that year, said they were in a part of Afghanistan he described as "unsafe".
The two were held in captivity for five years, suffering violence and abuse. Boyle says one of the children they conceived during the ordeal was killed by their captors.
Edwards says when he first heard his friend had travelled to Afghanistan with Coleman - who was seven months pregnant at the time - he couldn't understand how they had "done something so appallingly dangerous".
Family and friends have described Boyle and Coleman as naive idealists - a couple with strong convictions and humanitarian inclinations.
In interviews following their release, Boyle said he and Coleman travelled to Afghanistan to help people. He called himself a "pilgrim" on a mission.
He told reporters he went to help "the most neglected minority group in the world. Those ordinary villagers who live deep inside Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, where no NGO, no aid worker and no government has ever successfully been able to bring the necessary help".
What exactly the couple intended to do to help is a question that hasn't been answered.
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