Breaking News English

The ancient city of Pompeii in Italy gets hundreds of thousands of tourists every year. It is one of Italy's big tourist destinations. Most tourists leave the 2,000-year-old city with happy memories, photos and souvenirs, but some take more. They take historic relics, like small statues, stones or mosaic tiles. Many people are now regretting this. They say the relics are cursed and have filled their lives with bad luck. A senior official at Pompeii said he has had hundreds of relics from across the world returned. Many people apologised and wrote stories about their bad luck.

The senior official, Massimo Osanna, said one man from Latin America wrote about his life being full of traumas after he got home from Italy with a small tile from Pompeii. A man from Spain returned five packages, including a bronze statue he stole in 1987. He complained that the statue had put, "a curse on his entire family". Mr Osanna now wants to set up an exhibition of all the letters he has received. He said the letters might be more interesting than the relics. He added: "It's not that the stolen pieces are highly interesting or valuable. It's more the letters."