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Woman in Bulgaria says girl found living with family in Greece may be hers Woman in Bulgaria says girl found living with family in Greece may be hers
(about 3 hours later)
A woman in Bulgaria has said that police have questioned her about whether she is the mother of a girl found living with an unrelated couple in Greece, and that she is willing to do a DNA test and take the child back if she is proved to be hers. A Bulgarian woman is undergoing DNA tests after authorities acknowledged she could be the biological mother of a girl found living with an unrelated Roma couple in Greece.
Greek authorities took custody of the girl, known as Maria, after finding her while raiding a Roma camp for illegal weapons and drugs. The child stood out to police and others on the scene because she was blonde and fair-skinned, and looked nothing like the couple who claimed to be her parents. A worldwide hunt for the girl's parents led police to the central Bulgarian town of Nikolaevo where a mother of eight admitted she "may have" given birth to Maria.
The case of the girl, who is believed to be five or six years old, has gained international attention and drawn what some say is unwarranted and unfair attention to the Roma community in Europe, many of whom live in poverty and have been linked to crime. Sasha Ruseva told Bulgarian TV that she had had a baby girl while working in Greece in January 2009, but could not afford to take her home. The baby was left with a fellow Roma family who agreed to raise her, Ruseva said, although she insisted money was never exchanged.
After a DNA test proved Maria wasn't the daughter of the couple, they were arrested and an international search was launched to find her biological parents. The search apparently led to central Bulgaria, where police tracked down Sasha Ruseva in the town of Nikolaevo. "I intended to go back and take my child. Meanwhile I gave birth to two more kids so I was not able to go back," Ruseva told reporters, while cradling a fair-skinned girl with a remarkable resemblance to blonde, blue-eyed Maria.
Speaking to Bulgarian TV, the 38-year-old said she gave birth to a girl while working in Greece several years ago, but that she had to leave the child with another Roma family because she didn't have enough money to take her home. Ruseva has had eight children. Her claims support the statements of the couple in whose home Maria was found when police raided a Roma community, ostensibly in search of weapons and drugs, in Greece last week. Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou were arrested on charges of abducting a minor and imprisoned pending trial on Monday.
"I intended to go back and take my child home, but meanwhile I gave birth to two more kids so I was not able to go back," Ruseva said, insisting that she did not get paid for giving up the girl. Greek police hinted there was enough evidence to suggest that the 39-year-old man and 40-year-old woman were at the centre of a child trafficking ring. Much of that speculation hinged on the discovery that the woman had two identities and had claimed to have given birth to six of her 13 children in the space of 10 months. After DNA tests Greek authorities announced they were not Maria's biological parents.
Police in Bulgaria declined to immediately comment on the case. A prosecutor's office in the Bulgarian capital, Sofia, said it had opened a formal investigation into Ruseva's claims. The 38-year-old, who was expected to undergo a DNA test on Thursday, said she would take the child back if it was proved she was her daughter.
A Bulgarian interior ministry official said preliminary charges had been pressed against her "for deliberately selling a child while residing out of the country". The official said that, during questioning Ruseva had said she had recognised the Greek couple after seeing their pictures on TV.
Ruseva told reporters: "There is a resemblance but how should I know if she is mine or not," adding that she had not eaten and felt sick after seeing the pictures of Maria.
Hospital records in Greece show that Ruseva gave birth to a girl in Lamia, about 95 miles from the camp where Maria was discovered, on 31 January 2009 – the date the couple had registered as the child's birth date.
Maria has been moved into the care of the Greek charity, Smile of the Child, whose hotlines have been bombarded by more than 10,000 calls, often from people as far away as Australia and the US whose own offspring have gone missing.
For the past week the girl, who was thought to be around the age of four before a forensic pathologist declared she was likely to be five or six, has been undergoing medical examinations.
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