Pakistani families uprooted by conflict with the Taliban face a miserable Eid al-Fitr, with no cash to splash on celebrations and longing to return to homes they fear no longer exist.
“All I want is to go back home this Eid,” said Khalida Bibi, a 10-year-old girl standing in a line to collect packages from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees agency (UNHCR) at a camp for displaced people in northwest Pakistan.
In a family of 10 brothers and sisters, Khalida remembers presents, money and new clothes for Muslim festivals at home in Bajaur, where Pakistan launched a bloody operation against the Taliban near the Afghan border last year.
“When we were at home in Bajaur, we enjoyed Eid a lot. We wore new clothes, new shoes and had our wrists full of bangles. We got money and gifts,” she said.
“This year, we’ll wear old clothes on Eid because we have no money to buy new ones,” she said.
The UN says about 2 million Pakistanis have been displaced by fighting between the army and Taliban militants, which the US has branded an existential threat to the nuclear-armed country.
Officials say 1.65 million have since returned home, but a fresh operation launched this month in the Khyber district, a major supply route for US and NATO troops in Afghanistan, has displaced another 56,000 to 100,000 people.
While most displaced people shelter with friends and relatives, many of the poorest have crammed into 17 dusty refugee camps, where morale is low despite handouts from charities and assistance from UN agencies.
Few can expect the new clothes, shoes, bangles and henna parties with which millions of Muslims the world over celebrate the end of Ramadan, the month when people abstain from food and drink, smoking and sex from dawn to dusk.
“We celebrate Eid in terrible circumstances. We’re sad and worried. Our home was destroyed during the operation,” said Bibi Gul, a 40-year-old mother of 11 who fled fighting in Mohmand.
“We were happy when we celebrated at home. We used to buy new clothes and shoes for all our children at Eid, but now we have no money to buy anything,” she said.
Shams ur-Rehman, 21 from Bajaur, wears a brown shalwar khamis as he watches UNHCR staff distribute Eid packages.
“When I was in Bajaur, all our friends got together on Eid. We used to beat drums, dance and sing. We had a lot of fun. Now everything is finished,” the father of one said. “I don’t know when I’ll go home, when peace will be restored and I can sing and dance again on Eid.”
With inflation at 11.17 percent, shopkeepers believe even well-off families are spending less on Eid luxuries.
In Islamabad, one of the wealthiest cities in the country, many clothing and shoe shops stood empty in the run-up to Eid, despite gaudy decorations of lights and plastic flowers designed to pull in passing trade.
“Last year I sold clothes worth 50,000 rupees [US$600] every day, but this time I hardly made 15,000 rupees,” said Gul Zaman Abbasi, who runs a clothing shop.
“This year, Eid will not be same as the last one,” he said.
Samina Javed, a 35-year-old mother looking for shoes for her daughter, said she sacrificed her needs in order to treat her child.
“My husband is a government employee and earns only 15,000 rupees a month. It’s hard even to run a household. I spent months saving to buy my daughter an Eid dress and shoes,” said Javed, standing outside a shop in faded clothes.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS