September 18, 2006
A Chaldean Catholic priest, was abducted in Baghdad on Sept. 16 and released today.
His death was just five days after the release of a Chaldean Catholic priest was kidnapped on Aug. 15 and released on September 11 after paying a ransom, Father Hanna Saad Sirop, and two months of the Father Raad Washan Sawa, who was kidnapped and released the day following the promise of payment of a ransom of $ 200,000, and is now living abroad for security reasons.
The priest, Father Basel Salem Yalda, had been threatened in the past and especially during the captivity of Father Saad, and For this reason it had suspended all its public activities. The day before yesterday morning on his way to meet the newly released priest of the Chaldean Church and the Patriarch, Mar Emmanuel III Delly, of which he is secretary, but never arrived to the meeting place. Nothing is known of the reason that prompted Father Basel not wait for the car with an armed escort to take delivery of the Patriarchate and to use its own to move by Dora, the southern district of the city where it was seen that morning, towards the central area of \u200b\u200bMansour.
searches without any results were carried out in several hospitals in Baghdad to see if by chance a priest was involved in one of many incidents in the city.
Although no official source has talked about kidnapping the hope of finding him had been weakened with the passage of time: Baghdad is a city where people "choose" to disappear voluntarily, especially someone like the priest in question knew to be in danger .
the abduction of Father Basel will be other disturbing episodes. That same day an anonymous phone call came to the Patriarch of the Chaldean Church warned that in the absence of official and public apology by Pope Benedict XVI for his words during his apostolic trip to Germany and considered offensive by most Christians in the Islamic world 's would have paid dearly. A threat that was one step closer to materialize during the night when another priest has received an anonymous phone call but had presence of mind to immediately leave the church where he lived, near the church and within which very little is been reported by some witnesses, were noted six cars with armed men on board.
In the days following the disappearance Basel Father of the lack of news had feared the worst while attention focused on Pope's Angelus address, and how and if his words could calm the protests in the Islamic world and its reactions to the minority Christian communities that live within it. This morning, however, Basel
Father was released and is in good health. His captors have in fact left free in the area of \u200b\u200bKarrada, not far from the convent of the Chaldean sisters where he found immediate refuge. For now, nothing has been leaked on the reason for the abduction and his release so in the short term, much less whether a ransom was paid and how much.
Luigia Storti
Migrant Ministry Office Archdiocese of Turin
