Kurdistan
People holding torches while climbing the hill of Akre town during Newroz celebrations on March 20, 2022. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - The United Nations chief on Monday extended his warm wishes to the Kurdish people as they continue their Newroz celebrations, heading to the countryside to hold picnics in large crowds.
Known as Newroz, Kurds celebrate the New Year on March 21-23 by cooking large portions of traditional dishes and picnicking in the wilderness and farmlands while dressed in their Kurdish clothes.
Newroz “is a national Kurdish event that we have to commemorate annually,” a local lady dressed in purple Kurdish dress told Rudaw’s Bakhtiyar Qadir on Monday.
Top Kurdish leaders and diplomatic missions in the Kurdistan Region sent celebratory Newroz messages.
Newroz “is a celebration of new beginnings. The beginning of a new year. The arrival of spring. The renewal of nature,” UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres said in a statement.
“As humanity faces unprecedented challenges, let us be guided by the Nowruz [Newroz] spirit of solidarity and renew our pledge to live in harmony, protect our planet and leave no one behind,” he added.
US President Joe Biden also extended his best wishes to those celebrating Newroz.
Hundreds of thousands of people from the Kurdistan Region, as well as Kurdish regions in Turkey, Iran, and Syria celebrated Newroz on Sunday, also symbolizing a day of freedom from tyranny and resistance.
Around 150,000 people from the Kurdistan Region and other Kurdish-populated areas have flocked to the capital of Newroz of Akre to mark the event by climbing up the town’s hill with torches.
Newroz celebrations were halted due to the coronavirus pandemic in the past two years as the Kurdistan Region spent March of 2020 in quarantine, and permitted lightning fires only in the following year.
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