AL-QATIF, Saudi Arabia: Saudi Shia celebrated Imam Al-Mahdi day of remembrance on Thursday night with widespread festivals.

Fireworks lit up the sky in Qatif. Artificial and decorated gates were set up on the roads with booths on the sides for distribution candies and light snacks.

Gates were decorated with signboards carrying blessing sayings and neon lights.

Houses lit up colored lights on the front gates and side walls. Shops hanged signboards of best wishes.

Early hours of Thursday night, mosques and Hussainyahs in Qatif and Al-Ahsa started adoration programs and religious recitation describing the moments of Imam Al-Mahdi birth.

Despite the heat and humidity, children wearing traditional costumes roamed around the streets with their bags singing traditional songs as they move from one house to other where they get their share of light snacks and candies.

Several Saudi Shia families, who live in cities far from Qatif and Al-Ahsa, celebrated the joyful event in small gatherings in houses basements or farms.

Several families celebrated the event in the holy cities of Madinah, West of Saudi Arabia, Krabala, Iraq, Mashhad, Iran or Saydah Zaynab, Syria.

Usually, the public and official media ignore this major event in all sorts of media despite the fact that more than 15 percent of the total population is Shia.

It should be noted here that security forces stormed into one of the biggest Shia festival in Al-Ahsa in a village called Bani Ma'an.