While police set up highway checkpoints and domestic flights and other modes of transportation were suspended, anxiety lingers that people will defy the prohibition. Similar patterns followed other holidays in the country that has counted 1.7 million infections and more than 47,600 fatalities from COVID-19. “But let’s prioritize safety together by not going back to our hometowns.”ĭespite the similar ban a year ago, the number of daily cases in Indonesia had picked up by 37% three weeks after the holiday.
“I understand that we all miss our relatives at times like this, especially in the momentum of Eid,” Indonesian President Joko Widodo said in televised remarks. Experts fear a surge in cases in a country grappling with a shortage of vaccines and fear of Indian variants of the coronavirus spreading. In Bangladesh, however, tens of thousands of people were leaving the capital, Dhaka, to join their families back in their villages for Eid celebrations despite a nationwide lockdown and road checkpoints. Indonesians and Malaysians were banned for a second year from traveling to visit relatives in the traditional Eid homecoming. The world’s most populous Muslim-majority nation allowed mosque prayers in low-risk areas, but mosques in areas where there was more risk of the virus spreading closed their doors, including Jakarta’s Istiqlal Grand Mosque, the largest in Southeast Asia. Worshippers wearing masks joined communal prayers in the streets of Indonesia's capital, Jakarta. “It is all airstrikes, destruction and devastation,” said Hassan Abu Shaaban, who tried to lighten the mood by passing out chocolates to passersby.
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