GREECE • "Maria" - 4 yo (2013)/ POIs: Hristos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou (Selini Sali ) ~ Farsala/Larissa

ladibug wrote:This is just a snip from a long, mostly duplicate article I posted in the "unresolved" part, but I thought it very poignant:

"Minka Ruseva, a 14-year-old who is one of the family's children, who range in age from two to 20, stood in front of their dilapidated two-room house. Minka said she saw pictures of Maria on TV and thought she was her sister.

"I like her very much, she looks very much like me, and I want her back home. We will take care of her and I can help my mother," she said."

Read more here: http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/blond-angel-parents-confirmed-as-bulgarian-roma-couple-1.2224891

Yes, poor little Maria - she must be confused and scared. What's the best outcome?

Threads merged - DNA tests have confirmed a Bulgarian Roma couple as the biological parents of mystery child Maria. She is not American.

The State IS KIDNAPPING the siblings now!! 


Sasha Ruseva's daughter Minka, in black and white stripes, dances along with other children in her neighbourhood. (Vadim Ghirda/Associated Press)

Bulgarian authorities said on Wednesday they would take into care most of the brothers and sisters of Maria, the four-year-old Roma girl who captured global attention after she was discovered in Greece living with a Roma couple who were not her parents.


Four of the Ruseva children in the doorway of their house. From left, Atanas, 3, Fanka, 11, Penka, 2, and Philip, 7. (BGNES/Associated Press)
DNA tests have confirmed that Sasha Ruseva, 35, is the biological mother of Maria, whose blue eyes and blond hair aroused the suspicions of Greek police when they raided a Roma camp this month.

Ruseva and her husband, both Bulgarian Roma, have nine other children between the ages of two and 20 and live in deep poverty, occupying one room in a crumbling house in the town of Nikolaevo, 280 km east of the Bulgarian capital of Sofia.

TV footage that showed the children in shabby clothes sleeping on a mud floor and speaking little Bulgarian caused public outrage.
Two eldest children not affected

"We decided to accommodate four of the kids with foster families," Diana Kaneva, head of the agency for social assistance in the area, told Reuters on Wednesday.
Ruseva-Roma-children

"Two children will be sent to a state institution, and one will be placed with relatives of the family," she said, adding that the measures were temporary and contact between children and their parents would be encouraged by the social workers.

Two other children are over 18 and not subject to state protection.

Maria, dubbed "the blond angel" by Greek media, is now in the care of the Athens-based charity Smile of the Child.

On Tuesday, Bulgarian authorities said they would take steps to bring her back to the Balkan country.
Case highlights desperate plight of Roma
Bulgaria-Missing Girl

Ruseva, who said she left Maria as a seven-month-old baby with another couple in Greece because she was too poor to care for her, has also said she would like to take her back. Many Roma from other parts of Europe travel to Greece to work as seasonal workers picking olives.

Both parents are jobless and live on welfare. Ruseva is under investigation over whether she was paid for handing over her child, which she denies. The couple in Greece have been charged there with abducting a minor and detained.

The case has illustrated the plight of Roma gypsies in Bulgaria, the European Union's poorest member state. Many spend their lives close to destitution, illiterate and on the fringes of society.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/siblings-of-blond-angel-to-be-taken-into-care-in-bulgaria-1.2288701

Unless Sasha Ruseva says "thank you for taking my children" this is so wrong.  Because some people who wear rosy colored glasses got upset when they saw pictures of the living conditions the children are being taken. If they don't like the conditions then work for a solution.  They've been ignoring the poor for decades, it's nothing new.  Jesus Himself said "the poor you will have with you always".  The kids look happy to me and when Minka saw Maria she wanted her to come "home".  She didn't say "now she will get to live with a rich family".  These are probably the same ones that think it's better to murder your baby then bring him up with love in poverty.  What about the starving children in Africa -we should be trying to help folks work to improve their living conditions, look into why they can't get jobs. They just seem happy to me, and loved and that's more than can be said about many of the young people who live in big houses with lots of play-station games and carpets.     

HA!  Someone agrees (bold is mine)  

"...This week Filip Borev has chosen a comment by Jupitar on his article about the discrimination that Roma face:

   Even though it turns out Maria is actually a Roma child, I see many people are still calling for her to be removed from the community and adopted into a "loving" family. Is this case ironically going to go from a supposedly white child being allegedly stolen by non-whites, to a child who despite physical appearance can no longer really be classified as white being permanently taken away by whites? As this case has highlighted, the latter is the only acceptable arrangement in society's eyes when it comes to interracial guardianship of other people's children.

Filip explains why he chose this comment:

   The only child abduction to take place in the past two weeks was the abduction of Maria by the Greek authorities and this is why I chose this comment. Maria's mother left her child, in the care of Christos Salis and Eleftheria Dimopoulou due to the rampant poverty that much of the Roma population faces. Given that no kidnap took place, the only crime committed was a failure to obtain the approved paperwork. We must ask, therefore, is this reason enough to prevent Maria returning to the only family, neighbourhood and culture she has known? Still absorbed by the colour of her skin, the authorities have clearly decided that denying Maria of her family and culture is the correct thing to do. A white Roma child has deeply upset notions of "whiteness" and it seems clear to me that they will do all in their power to make certain that every last drop of Romany is squeezed out of the girl. Her fate is either a lifetime of institutions, or adoption by a respectable white couple. Either way she has been snatched from a family who loved her, and of the culture that runs through her veins. So, who will save Maria from her real abductors?"

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/31/roma-maria-comment-of-the-week
I'm not too big on the race and color issues as I never saw this as racial - just that there really is a Roma child traffiking mob in existance and Maria is blond. But I am very upset that they want to disrupt and denigrate the culture. Besides, Maria's siblings (both light and darker) are being abducted from their family too.

HA!  Someone agrees

Many of us agree.    

 Thanks, Twink  

Mystery Maria's real mom: 'I will go hang myself' if they take away my other kids

Sasha Ruseva holds her son Atanas as she speaks to media outside her house in Nikolaevo, Bulgaria.
By Henry Austin and Shanshan Dong, NBC News

The real mother of  “Maria” — the little girl who sparked a Europe-wide search when she was found living with a couple who were not her parents — told Bulgarian TV on Thursday that she “will go hang herself” if social workers take away her other children.  

“I cannot live without them,” Sasha Ruseva told state broadcaster Bulgarian National TV (BNT) at her mud-floored dwelling in Nikolaevo. “I will go hang myself. I will take the rope and I will go.”

“This is hard for me,” she added. “How will they take my children? I have been looking after them for so many years, they have grown already, and now they will take them. How is that possible?”

(Poster's note: Mrs. Ruseva, I'm wondering the same thing, "How is that possible?" and praying for you.)

http://worldnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/31/21263839-mystery-marias-real-mom-i-will-go-hang-myself-if-they-take-away-my-other-kids

Bulgarian mother of Maria has five children taken into care

Bulgarian social services have re-homed five of Maria's brothers and sisters living in a Roma ghetto in the outskirts of Nikolaevo

The Bulgarian mother of Maria, the blonde girl discovered in a Roma settlement in Greece has had five of her nine children taken into the care of state authorities.

Sasha Ruseva and her husband Atanas were visited by social services who moved to take the children and place them into state homes or with foster families on Tuesday. Ms Ruseva, who lived in deplorable poverty in a one-roomed shack, has been re-housed with her two youngest children in Stara Zagora, 25 miles away from the Roma ghetto.

Kosyo Kosev, the Mayor of Nikolaevo, told The Telegraph: “Social services have decided to settle Mrs Ruseva and her two youngest children in social housing while the other five under age will be re-homed for the time being either in a state institution or with foster families.”

Maria will continue to be cared for by Athens based charity The Smile of the Child until authorities decide where to place her. Bulgaria's State Agency for Child Protection (SACP) said they would take all possible measures to have Maria returned back to the country now it had been recognised that she was a Bulgarian national.

The discovery of a blonde-haired, blue-eyed girl living with a Roma family in Greece last week sparked an international investigation after DNA tests proved the girl was not biologically related to a couple who initially claimed to be her parents.

Ms Ruseva spoke to Bulgarian press last week and claimed she had given birth to Maria while working in Greece and was forced to leave the child in the country because she did not have enough money to take her home at seven months of age.

The head of the SACP said authorities are "ready to take full responsibility for Maria", although she is unlikely to ever re-join her biological family in the immediate future, if ever at all. Instead, she will initially be relocated to a crisis centre or placed with foster parents.

Christos Salis and Eletheria Dimopoulou, aged 39 and 40, have been arrested and charged with abduction and document fraud. Under Greek law, child abduction charges can include cases where a minor is voluntarily given away by its parents outside the legal adoption process.

Costas Katsavos, the lawyer representing the Greek couple said on Friday they planned to seek legal custody of the fair-haired girl, who they say they have raised "like their own".

“Provided what we said is borne out, that it was not an abduction, then logically they will be released from prison and they will be able to enter a proper (adoption) process. They truly and ardently want her back,” Katsavos said.

Meanwhile, Ms Ruseva, who has also said she wants the child returned into her custody, is under investigation for allegedly selling Maria in Greece.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/bulgarian-mother-of-maria-has-five-children-taken-into-care-8912746.html

Is no one defending the rights of the children to stay with their family?  Fourteen year old Minka who was so looking forward to the return of her little sister "Maria" has known no other family and she has been taken from her mother for what reason? She obviously didn't think living conditions were so bad that there wasn't room for one more. "SOCIAL SERVICES HAS DECIDED..." who are they to decide where the Rusevas and their children live. I'm sure there are hundreds  of similar situations throughout the country- are they just going to take all the children from loving parents? If the people of the world allow this then there will be "lamentation and weeping and much mourning - Rachel weeping for her children, and she would not be comforted because they are not." Matt 2:18

There are a lot of stories coming out in the 'Mirror' and similar papers with negative tales about Sasha Ruseva, but until they are proven to be true I will continue to be appalled and horrified by the power of the government and "good men doing nothing".