LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Just days before Father's Day, a Louisville dad is making a plea for his son's return.
Ryan Corbett has been wrongfully detained by the Taliban for more than 670 days.
Tuesday, the U.S. House unanimously passed a resolution, with bipartisan support, calling for Corbett's immediate release.
Corbett's dad, Drue Corbett, said after 22 months in a Taliban prison his son is starting to notice himself that he's unrecognizable.
"It was very hard. Every time she (Anna Corbett) talks to him now, he seems worse and his awareness of being worse, it's hurtful," Drue Corbett said. "He said 'Anna, you won't recognize me.' (He) lost a lot of weight, skin he said looks like alligator skin, which really is dehydration really bad, blood pressure through the roof, ears ringing real loud, kind of losing his eyesight just in a dungeon, really."
That was during a six-minute phone call to Ryan Corbett's wife, Anna, earlier this week detailing the inhumane conditions he's living in.
The couple's family lived and worked in Afghanistan to help locals start their own small businesses. He fled with thousands of others in 2021, but went back to continue his efforts the following year. That's when the Taliban wrongfully detained him.
Nearly two years after he was first taken hostage, the House passed the resolution calling for his release. It coincides with a resolution the Senate passed two months ago.
Now, Corbett's father is pleading with President Joe Biden that it's up to him now to bring his son home.
"To allow Americans, more than one, to be stuck in an Afghan Taliban jail for 22 months and not even to call his name, not even to call his wife, that is immoral and it's wrong, and I ask you to stand up like a man and go get Ryan," Drue Corbett said. "You can do this. It requires your signature now, nobody else. It comes to you and I ask you to do that for the American people. This can't go on. This makes us look stupid, that we can't get our people out. There's been, I believe, five different countries that have had people in (the) Taliban prison with Ryan. They all got out, except the Americans."
In the two years he's been held captive, Ryan Corbett's family has gotten eight phone calls from him.
This weekend marks another Father's Day without him, as his daughter gets ready to graduate from high school later this month.
Previous Coverage:
- 'I'm exhausted' | Wife of man being held hostage by Taliban says she's losing faith in US government
- Wife of American hostage pleads before lawmakers on Capitol Hill for husband's safe return
- 'He is suffering greatly' | Louisville couple speaks out as Taliban holds son hostage for nearly 18 months
- After 20 months of being held hostage by the Taliban, family of man with ties to Louisville says he's 'losing hope'
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