Ivorian President Alassane Ouattara has offered to contribute large quantities of rice and sugar – along with hard cash – to the nation’s Muslims ahead of the fasting month of Ramadhan. “It’s a traditional gesture that the president makes each year before Ramadhan,” government spokesman Kone Nabagné Bruno reportedly said on 24 June.
Ouattara, 72, who was elected president in 2011, is a practising Muslim, while his French-born wife, Dominique, is a Catholic. The president’s donation will include four tons of rice, four tons of sugar and $3000 in cash, which will be distributed to the less fortunate, especially widows and widowers, according to the Superior Counsel of Imams (COSIM), the country’s main Islamic association.
CRIMEA DECLARES EID AS OFFICIAL HOLIDAY
Crimea has declared the Muslim festival of Eid an official holiday during a session of the Crimean Parliament on 25 June. The move is likely to appease Crimea’s native Tatar community, who make up around 13% of the overall population with a 300,000-strong community.
As Muslims, they celebrate two Eid festivals every year, one being to mark the end of the month of Ramadhan, and the other to signify the end of the Hajj pilgrimage season. Seventy-two lawmakers voted in favour of the move, as well as supporting the Orthodox Easter and Trinity also being declared official holidays.