A Lebanese citizen has been living in an Ecuadorian airport for more than a month after losing his passport and credit cards, an Ecuadorian newspaper reported Monday.
The man, identified as 56-year-old Nizam Hussein Shalak, has been staying in the Jose Joaquin de Olmedo International Airport’s departure lounge in the provincial capital of Guayaquil for more than 42 days, local daily El Universo reported.
A Foreign Ministry source told The Daily Star, “We are unaware of this case and will communicate with the Lebanese Ambassador in Ecuador in order to find out the details of the story."
AFP quoted an Ecuadorian Foreign Ministry source as saying that the Lebanese Consulate in Columbia's Bogota - the nearest Lebanese consulate that can issue travel documents - had been unresponsive to requests to issue travel documents for Shalak.
"We are closely following the case and are working with the interior (ministry) to get Lebanon to issue him a travel document so he can return to his country," the source said.
Shalak was reportedly a tourist in Ecuador, spending two months there before attempting to return to Lebanon via Lima, the capital of Peru, and then Spain. However upon his arrival in Spain, Shalak realized his passport was missing and was sent back to Ecuador.
El Universo reported that Shalak does not speak Spanish, and that his extended presence in the airport was noticed by people who used Google Translate to communicate with him.
He has been using airline coupons for food and showers every four or five days when he is taken to a bathroom in a separate part of the terminal, El Universo reported.
This article has been adapted from its original source.
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