Malaysia mourns MH17 and MH370, even as it celebrates end of Ramadan
End of Ramadan should be a time for Muslims to celebrate. But Malaysians are struggling to come to terms with two aviation disasters
Fireworks danced across the sky in Kuala Lumpur on Sunday night, ahead of yesterday's Hari Raya Puasa holiday marking the end of Ramadan.
But Malaysia's festivities for Islam's most important holiday, known elsewhere as Eid ul-Fitr, were shrouded by a dark mood, as the country reeled from the aviation disasters of flights MH370 and MH17.
"Mummy, this year's Raya and the upcoming ones will not be Raya," tweeted 15-year-old Diyana Yazeera, whose mother, Dora Shahila Kassim, was chief stewardess on MH17. She perished with 297 others when the Malaysia Airlines plane was shot down over Ukraine.
"I'm not gonna celebrate it without you," wrote Yazeera.
The air tragedies have cast a long shadow, leaving Malaysians struggling to make sense of the twin disasters.
Not a trace has been found of Malaysia Airlines flight 370, from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing, which vanished in March with 239 passengers. Two weeks ago, flight 17 was downed, allegedly by Russian-backed rebels in eastern Ukraine.