A large group of tourists from Israel who arrived to visit Bosnia and Herzegovina were stranded in Sarajevo because someone at the reception of the hotel where they were staying threw their documents in the trash.
This information was confirmed to the public service BHRT by the Director of the Service for Foreign Affairs of BiH, Zarko Laketa, with the clarification that the hotel staff is responsible for everything, but states that it is a coincidence.
The news was first reported by Israeli media, and the Sarajevo portal Istraga.ba, which is close to the security services, received confirmation of this event, explaining that it all happened at the Hills Hotel in the Ilidaa neighborhood of Sarajevo.
This hotel is one of the favorite destinations of tourists from Arab countries who visit BiH in large numbers during the summer. 47 Israeli citizens who arrived in BiH as tourists also stayed there.
Israeli website Ynet News reported that their passports ended up in a trash can near the hotel lobby. The documents then ended up in a pile of other trash and were taken to a storage facility by the municipal service.
"After checking the security cameras, we discovered that the passports had been mistakenly thrown in the trash," several tourists told Ynet.
"From the waiting waste, they were taken to garbage trucks and then to the processing warehouse. We were forced to stay in the hotel for another 48 hours, maybe more. We are afraid we could be stuck here for more than a week," this portal quotes an unidentified person from the group of tourists.
Everything was revealed when the Israelis were supposed to leave on Saturday, but an investigation is underway to find out how such an incident could have happened, and in the meantime, Israeli tourists must wait for new documents to be issued so they can leave BiH. Everything is now being coordinated by the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs.