Indonesian Muslims offer Eid al-Adha prayers on the street amid a surge of coronavirus disease cases in Surabaya, East Java province, Indonesia July 20, 2021, in this photo taken by Antara Foto.Indonesian Muslims offer Eid al-Adha prayers on the street amid a surge of coronavirus disease cases in Surabaya, East Java province, Indonesia July 20, 2021, in this photo taken by Antara Foto.
Thousands of Indonesian Muslims in Jakarta gathered for mass prayers on Monday to celebrate Eid al-Fitr, as the world’s largest Muslim-majority nation relaxed COVID restrictions in time to mark the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. Drone footage showed large crowds of people standing shoulder to shoulder outside the newly constructed Jakarta International Stadium for morning prayers, the first mass Eid gathering in two years in Indonesia since the coronavirus pandemic hit.
Residents welcomed the relaxed measures, which also allowed tens of millions of Indonesian Muslims to travel back to their hometowns to mark the festival, but urged caution about infection risks from COVID-19. For the past two years, the Southeast Asian nation of 270 million people has grappled with one of the highest rates of coronavirus infections in Asia, but in recent months it has loosened many of its pandemic restrictions after a sharp drop in infections.