My name is Firidon Qiryaqous Zia.
First of all, I'd like to thank the chair for giving me the opportunity to come here.
On September 24, 2006, I was at mass at church in Baghdad. Just after 10 o'clock we heard a bombing noise outside the church. We knew this was a trap for a bigger bomb, so I was helping two other people in preventing people from leaving the church and in closing the doors of the church.
Everyone wanted to flee, and the people from the neighbouring buildings wanted to come inside and see what was going on. Everybody was afraid and there was chaos.
There was a second bombing within about 10 to 15 minutes of the first one, when I was standing just outside the church. All I can remember is that I was on the floor, with other people on the floor beside me. One of them was dead. I could not hear anything but a buzzing noise in my ears. My leg was injured and I was bleeding very badly. I was screaming for help and no one came for at least 15 to 20 minutes.
The first person to help me was the priest of the church, who helped me move outside the church. The ambulance people helped me to get to the ambulance, because the ambulance could not come in front of the church due to the bombing.
There were already three dead bodies in the ambulance, which transferred me to the hospital.
When I was taken to the hospital I was informed that my leg would have to be amputated to save my life.
What was more painful than my injury and the blast in the church was the kidnapping of my son, which happened only months after this incident. My son is 24 years old.
I was called three days after the kidnapping of his son. I took the females in the family, my daughters and my wife, to the north of Iraq to be safe, and I stayed in Baghdad.
The Mahdi militia, which kidnapped my son, were negotiating with me. I was given three options to save my son. The first option given to my son was to become Muslim, which he refused to do. The second option given to my son was to go on a mission to bomb people, basically, to use a car with bombs in it and go into a place and bomb it; and the third option was to give $200,000 to the militia.
Many times I told them, “We do not have that kind of money. The most we have is about $5,000; that would be the most we can give.” They kept pushing, even making jokes about getting me to call the Pope and ask him for money.
My son was kidnapped on January 3, 2007. On January 12, 2007, I was called again and asked if I had the money. Since I did not have the money, they said, “We're going to kill your son, and you can find him in the hospital where they keep all the bodies of dead people.”
Basically, we lost hope, believing our son was killed. Later on, a few days later, we had news from someone who knew us, who passed on the news that there was someone in hospital with the name of Attra, which is my son's name, and that he was alive.... At that point, I went to the hospital to see if it was my son. I believed he was dead, and I wanted to receive his body, so I took his ID with me.
This is what was heard by Attra, my son, while he was sometimes conscious, sometimes semi-conscious. There were two police officers speaking to each other beside him. One of them was asking the other, “Do you know this guy is Christian? Let's kill him. Let's shoot him.” The second police officer replied, “He's pretty much dead anyway. There's no point in bearing the guilt of shooting him.”
I want to add that when the militia called me they said, “We're going to act the scene of crucifying Christ with him.”
When Attra, my son, was released by the militia, he was shot twice in the back while he was handcuffed, and left in the street. As far as I know, he was not attended to for four hours, so he was bleeding for four hours. One of the bullets was stuck in his spinal chord, and the other bullet went in and out of his body, causing damage to a lot of his inner tissues. He was treated for two months in Iraq, but with the poor equipment and medical supplies there, not much could be done. We did not have passports for the entire family, so we had to get the passports in order to leave the country.
When the passports arrived, I sent them to the family, to the mother and the daughters, in order for them to go to Syria, and then I followed them after a couple of months with my son, with Attra, since he had too many injuries and could not be transferred.
He was transferred on a stretcher on an airplane from Iraq to Syria. He was transferred immediately to a French hospital in Syria, and later on was moved to another hospital.
Basically, Attra is disabled right now, from the waist down, and he was told there is no medicine or solution for him in Syria. That's why I am hopeful and am praying to have a medical solution for my son here in Canada. I have brought my son's medical reports from Iraq and Syria to provide to anyone in Canada who can help me out.
I would like to thank the committee for giving me this opportunity, and I thank Father Majed from One Free World International for giving me this opportunity to speak up.
That's all. Thank you.