Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr holiday amid joy and tragedy

The holiday of Eid al-Fitr has ushered in a day of prayers and joy for Muslims around the world.

The celebration was marred by tragedy amid the explosion of conflict in Sudan, while in other countries it came against the backdrop of hopes for a better future.

After the Ramadan month of fasting, Muslims celebrate Eid al-Fitr with feasts and family visits.

In Sudan’s capital, Khartoum, staccato blasts of gunfire marked the early hours of the feast day.

In Jerusalem, thousands of faithful gathered at Islam’s third holiest shrine, the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, where tensions with Israeli authorities have seethed in the past month.

The compound also hosts Judaism’s holiest site.

Some attendees trampled on an Israeli flag and unfurled banners in support of Palestinian militant groups.

The streets of Arab capitals Damascus, Baghdad and Beirut were crowded with worshippers heading to mosques and cemeteries.

Visitors toted bouquets of flowers, jugs of water for plants and brooms to clean gravestones.

“After the Eid prayer we always visit our dead … to pray and pay our respects, may God have mercy and forgive them on this blessed day,” said Atheer Mohamed in Baghdad’s Azamiya cemetery.

But some countries rely on astronomical calculations rather than physical sightings.

This frequently leads to disagreements between religious authorities in different countries – and sometimes in the same country – over the start date of Eid al-Fitr.

In Sudan, the holiday was eclipsed by a week of raging battles between the army and its rival paramilitary force, which are locked in a violent struggle to control the country.

The fighting has killed hundreds of people and wounded thousands.

“Ruin and destruction and the sound of bullets have left no place for the happiness everyone in our beloved country deserves,” he said.

The day before, Sudan’s military ruled out negotiations with the rival paramilitary force, known as the Rapid Support Forces, saying it would only accept its surrender as the two sides continued to battle in central Khartoum and other parts of the country, threatening to wreck international attempts to broker a sustainable ceasefire.

In Yemen, the Saudi-Iranian rapprochement raised the possibility for an end to the civil war that had turned into a proxy conflict and torn the impoverished country apart since 2014.

Saudi officials and Iran-backed Houthi rebels recently began talks in Yemen’s capital of Sanaa.

However, the moment of hopes was marred by a stampede late on Wednesday at a charitable event in the rebel-held capital that killed at least 78 people and hurt 77.

This year’s Eid al-Fitr also came on the heels of intensified violence in Israel and Palestine.

That strike also killed Mr Abu Hatab’s sister and her children.

“Because they were killed in the Eid, I miss them especially during Eid al-Fitr. I miss their laughter,” Mr Abu Hatab said, standing by his family’s grave with his six-year-old daughter Maria.

In Afghanistan’s Kabul, where worshippers gathered under the watchful eyes of its Taliban rulers, 35-year-old Abdul Matin said: “I wish that besides security we had good income and good jobs. Unfortunately people can’t afford to buy all their necessities at this difficult time.”

In Turkey and Syria, many are still mourning loved ones lost in the devastating 7.8-magnitude earthquake that hit the two countries on February 6, killing more than 50,000 people.

Mr Erdogan, who is facing elections next month amid an economic crisis and the fallout of the earthquake, handed out chocolate and pastries to journalists outside the mosque, renamed Holy Ayasofya Grand Mosque after 85 years as a museum.