First communions before usual time in Baghdad

By Baghdadhope

That the climate in Iraq is improving for Christians was clear during the last Easter celebrations that in Catholic and Orthodox churches took place, albeit with exceptional security measures, with regularity and with a great precence of faithful in the churches, from Erbil to Baghdad, from Basra to Kirkuk. Signs of normalcy that so many Iraqis, Christians but also Muslims of course, seek and strive to achieve. Normalcy that for the Christians is represented also by the first communion rites of the children that this year in some churches have been anticipated.

Baghdadhope spoke with Father Douglas Al Bazi, parish priest of the Chaldean church of Mar Eliya in Baghdad.
"It was a really beautiful ceremony. 43 among boys and girls received their first communion and there were hundreds of people in the church with whom we celebrated."
All the media reported an improvement of security conditions compared to previous years. Can you confirm the news?
"Yes, the situation is really improved. We cannot say that it is normal but we must not forget that we have seen the hell, and even to see the children smile fills us with happiness ..."
In general, the first communions were held later in the year. Why this year you have set the date in April?
"It is true. Usually the celebration was at the end of the school year but we thought that in that time many families will go to northern Iraq and that it was more practical in April."
Why will the families leave Baghdad for the north by the end of the school?
"For the heat. In Baghdad the provision of electricity is still limited, everything still depends on generators and the fuel to run them is expensive and difficult to find. That's why people will go to the north."

The words of Father Al Bazi make us remember how the normalization of Iraq, made also by the power supply still missing more than 6 years since the beginning of the war, is still far.
And to be convinced of this it is sufficent to know that on last March 19 a Christian child, Elia Yacoub Yunis, was kidnapped in Erbil, that only by the intervention of the police who blocked the car of the kidnappers on the road to Kirkuk he could return to his parents and that, as the site PUKmedia reports, people close to his family think that it was a kidnapping for extorsion as the father of Elia runs a service company for mobile phones.