Their mothers, hovering behind, said even this small pleasure would soon be gone. “We don’t have the happiness of Eid. What is the happiness?’’ said Amana Bibi, 25. “We don’t have homes.’’
Charities sent bags of gifts such as shiny plastic wrist bangles and candies to children displaced by the floods, which have affected 18 million people.
The three-day Eid al-Fitr festival is celebrated at the end of the fasting month of Ramadan. The festival begins when the first visible crescent of the new moon is spotted in the skies. Eid started Friday in Pakistan’s northwest and yesterday in most other parts of the country.
During Ramadan, the faithful are supposed to abstain from food and drink in a dawn-to-dusk period of self-sacrifice to commemorate the revelation of the Koran to the Prophet Mohammed.
Eid includes morning prayers at mosques before visits, gift-giving, and meals at relatives’ and friends’ homes.
The Pakistani government has been criticized by victims for its inability to deliver adequate aid.
“We will provide you financial help for rebuilding homes,’’ Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told survivors at a camp in southwestern Baluchistan Province, one of the hardest-hit regions. He also distributed gifts.
President Asif Ali Zardari, criticized for traveling to Britain and France as the crisis developed, was also planning to visit victims.
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