Case of ‘Little Maria’ Is Solved, Bulgarian Romas Are Her Parents : The Two-Way : NPR
A DNA test has confirmed that the biological parents of Little Maria are a Roma couple living in Bulgaria.
Maria, you might remember, was taken from Christos Salis and his wife, Eleftheria Dimopoulou, because police said the child was too fair to be the Greek Roma couple’s daughter. The two were charged with abducting a child, but they maintained that they had adopted Maria from another Roma couple in Bulgaria.
The case raised questions about the stealing and trading of children, and about racial profiling and the way the Gypsy community in Europe has been treated for decades.
The case, driven by the media to international prominence, led couples in the U.S. to wonder if Maria was their missing child.
Today, as the AFP reports, we found out that Sasha Ruseva and Atanas Rusev are the girl’s biological mother and father.
During interviews on Thursday, before the results of the DNA tests were known, Sasha Ruseva said she had given up Maria because she was too poor to care for her.
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