How Latin American Muslims observe Ramadan amid sadness and solidarity with Gaza

The feeling of closeness to Gaza is omnipresent even in Muslim communities in Latin America that do not have a high number of Palestinians. (Supplied)
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Updated 29 March 2024
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How Latin American Muslims observe Ramadan amid sadness and solidarity with Gaza

  • Mosques throughout the region have launched charity efforts and awareness campaigns for Palestinians
  • Community leaders say the holy month has been more subdued than usual owing to the suffering in Gaza

SAO PAULO: Throughout Latin America, Muslim communities are observing Ramadan this year without the atmosphere of festivity that is common during the iftar meal owing to the suffering in Gaza, where more than 32,000 Palestinians have been killed since the war began on Oct. 7.

“This will be one of the worst Ramadan celebrations for us,” said Bashar Shakerat, a community leader in an area on the border between Uruguay and Brazil called Little Palestine due to the relatively high concentration of Palestinian immigrants.

“We’re praying at the mosque and there’s no festivity later. Everybody is sad.”

On Sundays during Ramadan, women traditionally cook large meals and people gather at the social club to celebrate. On weeknights, groups usually gather at home for iftar. Shakerat said nothing like that is happening this year.




Smoke billows behind highrise buildings during an Israeli airstrike on Gaza City. (AFP)

“We just want to pray and stay quiet at home,” he told Arab News. “We just want this war to be over. We’re tired. We want peace.”

Born in the Palestinian city of Jenin, Shakerat said he has family in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, as do many of the residents of Little Palestine.

“We traditionally collect food kits and distribute them among needy families in our city. We know that our brothers and sisters in Palestine are also starving,” he added.

Muslim communities in Latin America do not have a high number of Palestinians. Even so, the feeling of closeness to Gazans is omnipresent.

“Our mosque was founded decades ago by Palestinian immigrants. They moved to other cities or died over the years, and now most of our community are Africans or Brazilians,” Turkish-born Sheikh Adil Pechliye, spiritual leader of Palestine Mosque in the Brazilian city of Criciuma, told Arab News.

Despite the demographic change in the community, the mosque’s members still have a deep connection to Palestine, said Pechliye, who graduated in Madinah in 2001.

“We’ve joined Criciuma’s pro-Palestine committee, and have been active in protests and marches against the genocide in Gaza,” he added.

Pechliye has been giving lectures on Palestine, and gave a Friday sermon in a public square a few weeks ago in order to disseminate information on Gaza.

A couple of months ago, the Muslim community promoted a relief campaign and sent aid to the Palestinian enclave.

Pechliye believes that most Brazilians support the Palestinians despite the pro-Israel stance of the Brazilian press.

He praised President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who has been fiercely critical of Israel and even compared what is happening in Gaza to the Holocaust.




A Palestinian carries sacks of humanitarian aid at the distribution center of UNRWA. (AFP)

“The Holocaust was undeniably terrible, but I don’t think Lula tried to downplay its seriousness. He wanted to emphasize the horror of what’s happening now,” Pechliye said.

In the city of Santa Ana in El Salvador, the Muslim community also gathers to pray at a mosque named Palestine.

Mezquita Palestina Tierra Santa was founded in 2011 by a community that is almost completely made up of converted Salvadorans.

“We wished to honor Armando Bukele, who introduced Islam to El Salvador and whose family came from Palestine,” Sheikh Guillermo Sanchez told Arab News.

Bukele was born in El Salvador to Christian parents from Palestine, but he converted to Islam and was an imam for several years. His son Nayib is the current president of El Salvador.

Sanchez said his community “has strong ties with Palestine, and has been struggling to support Gazans in every way possible. A few weeks ago, we promoted a campaign to collect donations and sent it to Gaza.”

In the Colombian city of Cali, the Muslim community is in constant sorrow for the Palestinians, said Egyptian-born Sheikh Amr Nabil.

“At night we’ll have something to eat with our brothers here, but Gazans won’t have anything,” he told Arab News. “That’s very painful, and at the same time it helps us understand the injustices of our world.”

Since the beginning of Ramadan, the community in Cali has been praying for the Palestinians, and leaders such as Nabil have been giving lectures about Palestine and the roots of the conflict.

“I believe that only somebody who is completely uninformed about the Palestinian struggle is capable of supporting the ongoing genocide, or it’s a person who has completely lost humanity,” he said.

Colombian President Gustavo Petro has criticized on several occasions Israel’s attacks on Gaza. Many Muslims in the South American nation support his stance.

“His declarations are those of a human being who expressed solidarity to a people that’s being massacred. We appreciate it very much,” Nabil said.

Sheikh Abu Yahya, a Mexican-born community leader who converted to Islam 12 years ago, told Arab News this is “the most difficult Ramadan. Our community in (the city of) Leon is formed by Mexican converts and by Muslims from Arab countries. We’re all equally sad.”




People walk past the damaged Gaza City headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees. (AFP)

He said the community has been focusing on “developing empathy and suffering together with those who are suffering, so prayers for the Palestinians have been constant.”

Abu Yahya added: “We decided to take part in the local pro-Palestinian committee. We’ve been taking part in several activities and sharing information about Palestine.”

He said amid pro-Israel campaigns in the Mexican media, many Mexicans do not have adequate information about what is happening in Gaza.

“That’s noticeable during our lectures, but when people discover the reality, they express their solidarity with the Palestinians,” he added.

Many Latin Americans have been receiving information and images of the victims in Gaza via social media, which has been impacting the perceptions of a growing number of people in the region.

“The war doesn’t spare anyone, and hunger is undoubtedly the worst way of dying. That’s why it’s impossible not to think about Gazans during Ramadan,” said Shakerat.

 

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Russian attacks kill 18 civilians in Ukraine as Zelensky seeks more Western help

Updated 54 min 19 sec ago
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Russian attacks kill 18 civilians in Ukraine as Zelensky seeks more Western help

  • Zelensky is keen to lock in additional military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s bigger army
  • A Russian ballistic missile attack on Dnipro hit multiple civilian sites, killing nine people and injuring more than 100

KYIV: Russian drones, missiles and artillery killed at least 18 civilians and injured more than 100 others in Ukraine, officials said Tuesday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky sought guarantees of further Western military aid for his country’s efforts to repel Russia’s invasion.

Russian forces have relentlessly blasted civilian areas of Ukraine throughout the war, which is now in its fourth year. More than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed, according to the United Nations. Ukraine has also launched long-range drones against Russia, hitting residential areas.

Zelensky was set to meet Tuesday with Western leaders attending a NATO summit in The Hague, Netherlands. He is keen to lock in additional military support for Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s bigger army, as recent direct peace talks have delivered no progress on a possible settlement.

Key US military commitments to Ukraine left over from the Biden administration are expected to run out within months, according to analysts, and there is uncertainty over whether US President Donald Trump is willing to provide more.

A Russian ballistic missile attack on Dnipro hit multiple civilian sites in the central Ukrainian city around midday on Tuesday, killing nine people and injuring more than 100, local officials said.

In the nearby town of Samar, an attack killed two people and injured 11, Dnipro’s regional administration head Serhii Lysak wrote on Telegram.

The barrage damaged 19 schools, 10 kindergartens, a vocational school, a music school and a social welfare office, as well as eight medical facilities, according to Dnipro Mayor Borys Filatov. One of the blasts blew out the windows of a passenger train.

Russia also shelled residential neighborhoods and critical infrastructure across Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, killing four civilians and wounding at least eleven others, according to Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the regional military administration.

In the Sumy region of northeastern Ukraine, a drone attack late Monday killed three civilians, including a 5-year-old boy, and injured six others, local authorities said.

Among the injured were two 17-year-old girls and a 12-year-old boy, according to officials.

Russian air defense forces overnight shot down 20 Ukrainian drones, the Russian Defense Ministry reported on Tuesday morning. It said 14 were downed over the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, while two had been flying over the Moscow province.

One drone slammed into a tower block on the outskirts of the Russian capital, sparking a fire on its 17th floor, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said Tuesday. He said a 34-year-old resident suffered shrapnel wounds to his arm and leg. Two other drones were shot down on the approach to Moscow, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.

Air traffic was briefly halted as a precaution at two major Moscow airports, Vnukovo and Sheremetyevo, a representative of Russia’s aviation authority Rosaviatsiya said.


Merz says NATO spending boost to counter Russia — not please Trump

Updated 24 June 2025
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Merz says NATO spending boost to counter Russia — not please Trump

  • Merz has been racing to build up Germany’s long-neglected armed forces, with the aim of turning them into the ‘strongest conventional army’ in Europe

BERLIN: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz insisted a pledge by NATO allies to boost defense spending at a “historic” summit starting on Tuesday would not just aim to please US President Donald Trump.
“We are not doing this, as some claim, to do the United States and its president a favor,” he told the German parliament before setting off for the gathering in The Hague.
“We are doing this based on our own observations and convictions. Russia, above all, is actively and aggressively threatening security and freedom” across Europe, he added.
“We have to fear that Russia will continue its war beyond Ukraine.”
The summit has been viewed as heavily focused on keeping Trump happy after he made comments that sparked concern about Washington’s commitment to NATO and insisted that other member states spend at least five percent of their GDP on defense.
NATO’s 32 countries have thrashed out a compromise deal to dedicate 3.5 percent to core military spending by 2035, and 1.5 percent to broader security-related areas such as cybersecurity and infrastructure.
On Monday, Europe’s biggest economy revealed plans to reach the 3.5 percent level for core spending six years early — in 2029 — with the vast extra outlays necessary made possible after Germany eased its rules on taking on debt.
Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said on Tuesday that he would head to the NATO summit with the message that “external security and defense capability are once again an absolute priority in (German) government policy.”
“We are bringing about a historic turnaround in defense spending.”
On the summit, he said there were “good signs” about “the broad consensus on how to proceed... I see no reason to assume that we will be given the cold shoulder.”
Since taking office in May, Merz has been racing to build up Germany’s long-neglected armed forces, with the aim of turning them into the “strongest conventional army” in Europe — a radical shift in a country with strong pacifist traditions due to its dark wartime past.
A drive has been launched to boost military personnel, which aims to attract 11,000 fresh recruits this year alone — and Pistorius has suggested conscription, which was halted in Germany in 2011, could be reintroduced if too few people sign up voluntarily.
Germany is also building up a permanent military brigade in Lithuania — the country’s first such overseas deployment since World War II — to bolster NATO’s eastern flank against Russia.


Vietnam aims to sign nuclear power plant deal with Russia in August

Updated 24 June 2025
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Vietnam aims to sign nuclear power plant deal with Russia in August

  • The move follows Vietnam’s restart of plans to develop nuclear power plants
  • It is expected to be online between 2030 and 2035

HANOI: Vietnam’s government said on Tuesday it aims to sign an agreement with its Russian counterpart in August to build the Southeast Asian country’s first nuclear power plant.

Site clearance for development of the plant in Ninh Thuan province is to be completed by the end of this year, the government said in a statement.

The move follows Vietnam’s restart of plans to develop nuclear power plants that were suspended nearly a decade ago, as part of its efforts to ramp up its power generation capacity to support its fast-growing economy.

The government has previously said it expected the first nuclear power plants with a combined capacity of up to 6.4 gigawatts to be online between 2030 and 2035.

The government said on Tuesday it has told the finance ministry, central bank, state energy firm Petrovietnam and utility firm EVN to work with related parties on loans for the project.


Indonesian researchers unearth 500,000-year-old elephant fossils in Java

Updated 24 June 2025
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Indonesian researchers unearth 500,000-year-old elephant fossils in Java

  • Researchers say found elephant fossils may be almost complete 
  • Central Java is also location of archaeological site Sangiran, where ‘Java Man’ was found

Jakarta: Indonesian researchers have discovered fossils of a prehistoric elephant in Central Java, which they estimate are around 500,000 years old. 

The fossils were found in Patiayam, an archaeological site and mountainous area situated on the border of the Kudus and Pati regencies in Central Java, where, throughout the years, ancient animal fossils have been found.

In 2024, a collaborative team organized by the Center for Prehistory and Austronesian Studies, the Dharma Bakti Lestari Foundation and the National Research and Innovation Agency, known locally as BRIN, launched a research project at the site to explore fossil possibilities. 

Though the initial discovery was made then, researchers postponed the project until this year and expanded the site of excavation, which is still ongoing. 

“Based on the geological formation of the site where it was found, we estimate that the fossils are at least 500,000 years old, give or take. We have yet to conduct a direct dating of the fossils, so this is based on a relative dating of the soil layer,” Mohammad Ruly Fauzi, researcher at CPAS and BRIN, told Arab News. 

“We have been able to identify that these belong to an elephas type, but not the specific species … What’s clear is that this is a very big elephant, nothing like elephants today …. It’s prehistoric, not early historic period.”

He said the excavation has made about 50 percent progress and that the elements found so far make up the front part of an elephant. 

“It’s interesting because this is shaping up to be an almost complete fossil … They are all situated pretty closely.” 

Once the excavation is completed, the fossils will be preserved as part of a collection at the Patiayam Archaeological Museum. The discovery might help Patiayam gain recognition as a cultural heritage site, Fauzi added. 

“Every site has its own unique qualities, but Patiayam site is particularly interesting and very deserving to gain status as a national cultural heritage site in our opinion … This research can help serve as a foundation for officials to decide,” he said. 

Central Java, where Patiayam is located, is also home to the Sangiran Early Man Site, a UNESCO World Heritage site renowned for its significant collection of Homo erectus fossils, dating from 1.1 million to 800,000 years ago, including the “Java Man.” 


Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says

Updated 24 June 2025
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Ukraine has cleared 20 percent of mined land, PM says

KYIV: Ukraine has intensified efforts to clear land mines and has cut the affected area to around 137,000 square km (53,000 square miles), a 20 percent reduction from the end of 2022, Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal said on Tuesday.
Most of the remaining mined areas are farmland, Shmyhal added.
Ukraine is a global major grain grower but it reduced harvests sharply after Russia’s 2022 invasion left large areas occupied and mined.
Shmyhal said about 9,000 people from 112 specialized companies are now involved in mine clearance.
Military analysts say Ukraine needs at least 10 years to demine all territories.