Shafaq News- Nineveh

Yazidi employees in government offices across Iraq's Nineveh province will get days off for the Jama festival, one of their faith's oldest celebrations, Governor Abdul Qader al-Dakhil said on Monday.

The holiday applies to all Yazidi staff in state departments and institutions in the province. It runs from October 6 to October 13 to allow Yazidis to perform their religious rites and celebrate the festival.

The Jama festival, known in Kurdish as Jamaya Sheikhadi, is held over seven days at the Lalish Temple in neighboring Duhok province, the holiest site of the Yazidi faith. The gathering draws more than 200,000 pilgrims from Iraq and abroad.

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