Career
According to Zenit News Agency the church was attacked twice in the year before Father Douglas was kidnapped. The Father was shot during one of the attacks. Father Douglas fled from Baghdad, his hometown, to Erbil in 2013.
In November 2006 Father Douglas was kidnapped by a Islamist group. He was tortured and released nine days later. He suffered multiple injuries including two broken vertebrae from his spinal cord, and his face and knees were smashed using a hammer.
Many of the refugees are from Qaraqosh. The camp, which is located in the predominantly Christian Ankawa neighborhood of Erbil, boasts prefabricated housing units, a library, and an emphasis on education. Funding has come predominantly from Canada.
By November 2014, Mar Elia, which hosts about 700 refugees, was one of six churches in Erbil sheltering about 3,000 Christian families. Al-Bazi describes the ethnic cleansings being carried out by ISIS as "genocide". In September 2015, the Knights of Columbus released for national broadcast in the U.S. a television commercial featuring Father Douglas in the hope of encouraging more Americans to donate money for the relief of Christian refugees.
In the commercial, al Bazi asks viewers to "pray for my people, help my people, and save my people" saying that, "genocide is the easy word for what is happening to my people.".
