Source:
reutersDear Santa: Please Stop The Bombs
Baghdad Santa is back to hear Iraqi children's wishes for peace.
By Ahmed Rasheed
Reuters
BAGHDAD
Here's what Karrar Haider, a 10-year-old Shi'ite boy at a school in eastern Baghdad, told Santa he wants this year for the holidays:
"I have one wish to ask Santa Claus. Please bring peace to my country. Stop the bombs so I can play with my friends again."
Santa -- who spends the rest of the year disguised as a 48-year-old Chaldean Christian monastery administrator named Jalal Hourmoz -- said he was delighted to spread joy after two years when sectarian violence made a merry Christmas impossible.
"I stopped wearing the costume for two years. I was afraid of death. But this year it's a bit safer. So I'm back, to celebrate both Christmas and Eid," he said of the Christian and Muslim holidays that this year fall less than a week apart.
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