Latest Taliban Hostage Update: Video Shows American Caitlan Coleman, Canadian Joshua Boyle Forced To Raise Children In Afghanistan Captivity

A couple being held as hostages by the Taliban for four years is pleading for help in a video uploaded to Youtube that suggests the family is still alive. Canadian Joshua Boyle and American Caitlan Coleman, who were kidnapped in Afghanistan in 2012, are seen in the video begging their Western governments to save them.

Coleman described "the Kafkaesque nightmare in which we find ourselves" and urges "governments on both sides" to reach a deal for their freedom. "We can only ask and pray that somebody will recognize the atrocities these men carry out against us as so-called retaliation in their ingratitude and hypocrisy," she says in the video. She then adds: "My children have seen their mother defiled."

The U.S. State Department said it was aware of the footage, while Canada responded by calling for the unconditional release of the couple that has had two sons during their captivity. Canadian Global Affairs spokesman Michael O'Shaughnessy said his government had also watched the video.

"We are deeply concerned for the safety and wellbeing of Joshua Boyle, Caitlan Coleman and their young children and call for their unconditional release," O'Shaughnessy said.

A senior Taliban leader confirmed to Reuters Tuesday that the group had released the video showing the kidnapped family. The video made global headlines after it was discovered by the Site Intelligence Group, which monitors terror groups online. SITE said the video was dated Dec. 3. It was posted Monday night on YouTube, however, after the Haqqani network, an affiliate of the Afghan Taliban, delivered it to both U.S. and Canadian officials, Reuters reported.

Boyle and Coleman were traveling in the summer of 2012 through Russia, the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and then to Afghanistan when they went missing. Coleman, 31, was pregnant at the time.

Her parents, Jim and Lyn Coleman, have said they last spoke with their son-in-law on Oct. 8, 2012, when he called from an internet cafe. He said he was in an "unsafe" part of Afghanistan.

Jim Coleman said he received a letter in November confirming his daughter had given birth to a second son while being held hostage. He issued a plea to top Taliban commanders in July to be "kind and merciful" and release the couple.

The couple previously appeared in a Taliban video in 2013, when they also asked the U.S. government to help them return to freedom. A video released in August showed the couple warning that they and their children would be killed if the Afghanistan government continued to execute Taliban prisoners.

At the time, State Department spokesman John Kirby called for the family's "immediate release on humanitarian grounds" and said the U.S. would "continue to work aggressively" to return all U.S. hostages.

In the latest video, Coleman appeals to both President Barack Obama and President-elect Donald Trump to discuss her release with her captors. "They want money, power, friends. You must give them these things before progress can be made," she says.