Dubai : Muslims in Mideast and Asia Asia on Monday marked a grim Eid Al-Fitr, overshadowed by several air tragedies, including the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17, and conflicts in Gaza and Pakistan.
The end of a month of fasting was supposed to be a time to celebrate for Abeer Shamali. But instead, she spent the Eid feast in Gaza at the grave of her teenage son. Fellow mourners looked on glumly as Abeer caressed the earth under which her dead son lay, and placed pink and white hydrangeas upon the mound of sandy soil where Thaer, 16, was buried just four days ago. The boy was killed in Israeli shelling of Shejaiya in eastern Gaza, one of the areas worst-hit by a bloody military operation that has cost more than 1,000 Palestinian lives.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in his Eid message, said the Islamic world was suffering. “Hundreds of people are being killed every day in Islamic countries,” he said, highlighting the plight of those in war-torn Gaza. “The Afghan people are sad about the situation of people in Gaza, they are being killed ruthlessly day and night… we hope for peace, stability, development and happiness for them.” Festivities in Muslim-majority Malaysia were also muted — with government officials canceling their usual hosting of Eid feasts for the public — following the downing of Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 over eastern Ukraine on July 17.
Two other passenger planes — TransAsia Airways in Taiwan and Air Algerie in Mali — also crashed last week. The aviation disasters come after the mysterious, as yet unsolved March disappearance of another Malaysia Airlines jet, MH370. In his Eid message telecast late Sunday, Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak expressed his “extreme sadness, most profound sympathy and deepest condolences” to MH17 and MH370 victims’ families, who struggle with their loss.
In neighboring Indonesia, the world’s most populous Muslim nation, instead of celebrating, the family of MH17 passenger Ninik Yuriani was preparing to fly to Amsterdam, where victims’ remains have been brought for identification. “What was supposed to be a happy feast turned to deep sadness,” her sister Enny Nuraheni, 54, told AFP. “We can plan all we want, but everything is in God’s hands.” In Pakistan’s northwestern town of Bannu, where most of those driven from their homes by a military operation against Taliban militants have fled, 3,000 people offered Eid prayers at a park. Cricketer-turned-opposition leader Imran Khan visited the town to distribute sweets, saying on Twitter that he was “determined” to be with those driven from their homes.
In Gaza, the mood was sombre when families normally gather in large numbers to celebrate, eat and rejoice. Instead of invading relatives’ houses to feast, some went straight home. Many others walked or drove to cemeteries to pay their respects to those killed. “After the destruction and war we’ve seen here, there’s no Eid for us now,” said 44-year-old Issa. “We pray, honor our dead, and then go home.” The streets were mostly quiet. A few rubbish collectors picked up refuse which had festered for days, with a foul waste smell pervading the air.