“We are living in a small hell on earth.” From Compass Direct:
ISTANBUL, May 22 (Compass Direct News) — A Chaldean priest kidnapped in Iraq on Saturday morning (May 19) was released last night.
Chaldean Auxiliary Bishop Shlemon Warduni told Compass from Baghdad that he had personally collected Father Nawzat Hanna from his captors at 9:30 p.m.
“For about one hour I was going here and there, here and there, until they told me to stop,” Warduni told Compass, describing his interaction by telephone with Hanna’s captors. “I was afraid then, because at 10 o”clock there was a curfew.”
Refraining from mentioning the exact location, Warduni said that after he stopped his car he recognized Hanna coming towards him.
“He came crying and saying, “˜Oh Father, Monsignor, thank you, thank God, thank our Lady,– Warduni commented.
Sitting next to Hanna today at an undisclosed location in Baghdad, Warduni told Compass that Hanna had undergone a “little bit” of torture, but that he had not been hospitalized….
Warduni pleaded with Christians around the world to do everything possible to provide security for all religious and ethnic groups in Iraq. Expressing the daily fear that faces his community, Warduni said that it might even be better to die than to continue living in the “small hell on earth” that Baghdad has become.