Kurdistan Region announces Thursday will be first day of Eid al-Fitr

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Religious officials in the Kurdistan Region have announced that Thursday will be the first day of Eid al-Fitr, the holiday that falls at the end of the holy month of Ramadan.

Religious authorities in most Muslim-majority nations typically declare the exact Ramadan schedule, which can vary a day or so depending on visible stations of the moon, for all those within its borders. In Iraq, however, the faithful from different sects – or in this case, the Kurdistan Region – often end up beginning and ending their month of fasting on divergent dates. 

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Peshtiwan Sadiq, the autonomous region's Minister of Endowments and Religious Affairs, said in a press conference on Tuesday in Erbil that, due to the visibility of the crescent moon in the Kurdistan Region, Wednesday will be counted as the last day of Ramadan and therefore Thursday would be the first of Eid al-Fitr.

Baghdad's office of the Sunni Endowment announced that Eid al-Fitr would begin on Thursday for Iraq's Sunni Muslims as well.

Editing by John J. Catherine