A massive crowd of mostly barefoot Catholic worshippers marched Tuesday in an annual procession in the Philippines' capital, carrying a centuries-old black statue of Jesus. Many said they were praying for peace in the Middle East, where tens of thousands of Filipinos work, as fears rise of a spread of the Israel-Hamas war, now in its fourth month.
The procession, considered one of the major events of the year for Catholics in Asia, was suspended for three years during the coronavirus pandemic and last year, the statue was not paraded to discourage larger crowds. As the event got underway Tuesday, the crowd of devotees — many in maroon shirts imprinted with the image of the Black Nazarene — swelled to about 2 million, according to an unconfirmed police estimate.
