Muslim residents of a southern Philippine city devastated by last year's bloody militant siege are celebrating the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Fitr in gunfire-riddled mosques while many whose homes were leveled by the fighting prayed in tent shelters.
A few thousand people walked past burned homes Friday to the city landmark, the pockmarked Golden Mosque, to celebrate the holiday marking the end of the holy fasting month of Ramadan. In an evacuation center elsewhere in the lakeside city, homeless residents prayed in the open for an end to their misery.
The holiday is a reminder of how life has crept back to normalcy for thousands who have returned home, but also of uncertainties for many others months after troops quelled the five-month insurrection by Islamic State group-aligned fighters.
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