"They treated us like criminals," said one pilgrim. In the meantime, the Croatian embassy in Budapest reacted to the incident.

A series of blood-curdling scenes took place on the Croatian-Bosnian border: 63 pilgrims from the settlement of Korond in Hargita County (including the village mayor, deputy mayor, parish priest and cantor) were kept waiting for four hours, because they were visiting Medjugorje in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where - being a known Marian pilgrimage site - they bought various trinkets, bracelets, stones, rosaries, and a sacrament holder and altar cloth for the local parish, Magyar Jelen reported.

On the way back home, the Croatian border guards stopped the bus and made the mostly elderly group wait for four hours.

"There were no problems on the Bosnian side of the Bosnian-Croatian border, but on the Croatian side we were treated like criminals"

- stressed one of the pilgrims. He added that the buses were thoroughly searched, the elderly passengers were taken off, no one was allowed to go to the bathroom for four hours, and the valuables placed in the luggage compartment of the bus were confiscated. "According to the decision handed over to the bus driver, we committed smuggling, and we had to pay a fine of 800 euros on the spot," he said.

The Croatian embassy in Budapest told Magyar Jelen that the Hungarian bus driver who was fined for smuggling has the opportunity to initiate a new procedure, but they did not answer about the confiscated souvenirs.

As they wrote, "since the declarant (bus driver) failed to declare all the goods that he transported in his vehicle to the employees of the customs office, the employees of the customs office subjected the vehicle to a detailed examination, during which in the loading space, which is not used for the storage of goods transported by passengers, the In the so-called "bunker", certain goods were found (pictures, statues and similar objects)."

The favors were classified as commercial goods,

at least that's what the embassy said, citing that the bus driver and the customs officials didn't understand each other due to language barriers. The Hungarian embassy in Zagreb indicated that the Vatican's nuncio in Croatia is also interceding so that the Hungarian pilgrims from Transylvania can get back the objects of grace that are their property.

Source: Mandarin

Featured image: szekelyhon.ro