(25 Oct 2013) DNA tests have confirmed that a Bulgarian Roma couple living in an impoverished village with their nine other children are the biological parents of the girl found in Greece with another Roma couple, authorities said on Friday.
"We received today the results of DNA tests which make it clear that Sashka Rusevva is the biological mother of the girl known as blonde Maria, and Atanas Rusev is the biological father of the child," Chief Commissioner and Chief Secretary of Bulgaria's Interior Ministry, Svetozar Lazarov, told reporters.
Genetic profiles of Sasha Ruseva, 35, and her husband, Atanas, matched that of Maria.
Ruseva says she gave birth to a baby girl four years ago in Greece while working as an olive picker but gave the child away because she was too poor to care for her.
She since has had two more children after Maria.
Maria has been in a charity's care since authorities raided a Roma settlement in Greece last week and found she was not related to the Greek Roma couple she was living with.
Her discovery triggered a global search for her parents, fears of possible child trafficking and interest from authorities dealing with missing children cases in Poland, France, the United States and elsewhere.
Human rights groups have also raised concerns that the news coverage about Maria and the actions taken by authorities were fuelling racist sentiment against the European Union's Gypsy minority, who number around six (m) million.
The Rusevs and their other children live in a dilapidated, mud-floored house outside the remote Bulgarian village of Nikolaevo, 280 kilometres (175 miles) east of the capital, Sofia.
The Roma, or Gypsy, quarter here houses some 2,000 people.
Most there are jobless, living in extreme poverty, trying to stay warm in shabby houses.
"Her living situation is very bad. The baby can't go back to her. We want the baby back. They are unfairly holding our mother in jail. Why are they holding her? For kidnapping? The baby wasn't kidnapped," said Emmanuela Salli, daughter of the Roma couple charged with kidnapping Maria.
"She was raised here. Her mother threw her away like a dog," added their neighbour Panagiota Salli.
Another Roma camp resident complained about the treatment of the Roma community by the authorities.
"We told the truth from the start and nobody listened. They said we steal babies. That we send them to the traffic lights (to try to sell merchandise to passing drivers) Maria was just fine with this woman. The woman raised her. She gave her love," she said.
Greek criminal lawyer, Spilios Spiliakos, said on Friday that neither the Greek nor Bulgarian Roma couples may get custody of the girl.
"Apart from everything else there is already the obtaining of false documentation, the child has been documented as having other biological parents, I deem that the most plausible conclusion will be that the child's custody will be revoked from both the people who represented themselves as the parents as well as the biological mother," Spiliakos said.
He added that Greek criminal laws have jurisdiction if the crimes by the foreign couple were committed in Greece.
If the transfer of the child happened for a fee then the biological parents can also face charges of human trafficking, in which case the child will be taken under the care of social services, according to Spiliakos.
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