ADDIS ABABA, Dec. 6 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has registered Ethiopia's Shuwalid Festival as an intangible World cultural heritage, the official Ethiopia News Agency (ENA) reported Wednesday.
The registration of Shuwalid, an annual three-day festival celebrated by the Harari people in eastern Ethiopia, was announced at the 18th session of the Intergovernmental Committee for the Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage underway in Kasane, Botswana, from Dec. 4-9, the report said.
Shuwalid Festival marks the end of six days of fasting to compensate for omissions during the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The Harari people celebrate Shuwalid at the shrines of two Islamic saints at the main entrance gates of the walled city of Harar in eastern Ethiopia.
In September, the UNESCO inscribed Ethiopia's Gedeo cultural landscape in southern Ethiopia as a world heritage. ■