Public Story
Medjugorje
In the southwest of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the town of Medjugorje has been a site of Catholic pilgrimage since 1981, when six local teenagers reported being visited by an apparition of the Virgin Mary.
In the following years both Yugoslav authorities and the Vatican tried to discourage pilgrimages to the site, but visitors from around the world continued to come, even when a brutal civil war raged after Bosnia declared in independence from Yugoslavia in the early 1990s.
Today, Medjugorje is one of Bosnia's most visited sites, attracting upwards of 1 million visitors every year, with some restaurants and hotels trying to cater to specific nationalities from mostly Catholic countries such as Italy, Poland, Ireland and Brazil.
However, the town has been severely affected by the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with border restrictions bringing visits by most foreign pilgrims to a halt.
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