Maria's Siblings to Be Placed in Care in Bulgaria

The siblings of Maria, the little blonde girl found in a Greek Roma camp this month, will be placed in homes until their parents can care for them, Bulgarian social services said Thursday.

The agency said it will find emergency housing for the children -- aged two to 15 -- "with relatives, in foster homes and specialized institutions."

They will be returned to their parents, Sasha Ruseva and Atanas Rusev, when they are "ready to take care of them adequately," the agency added.

In the meantime, the children will still have regular contact with their parents, it said.

On Tuesday, the child protection agency had ordered a review of the conditions in which Maria's seven siblings were raised in the Nikolaevo ghetto in central Bulgaria, with a view to taking protective measures if necessary.

Four-year-old Maria made international headlines earlier this month when she was found living with a Roma couple who were not her parents in the Greek town of Farsala.

The girl was thought to be an abducted western European child until the Greek and Bulgarian authorities tracked down her real parents.

Sasha and Atanas Rusev admitted abandoning the seven-month-old in Greece in 2009 because they were too poor to look after her.

Sasha is now under investigation for allegedly selling Maria, for which she faces six years in prison, but has denied taking any money for the girl.

The government in Sofia said Tuesday that it wanted to bring Maria, who is currently in the care of Athens-based charity Smile of the Child, back to Bulgaria.

If she were to return, she would be placed in one of Bulgaria's two "SOS Children's Villages" -- a charity organisation for abandoned children and orphans, according to social services.

Bulgarian media have however criticized the hypocrisy of the authorities, who have focused on one family when many others are in a similar situation.

"There are too many children who live in such conditions, without being 'blonde angels'," the newspaper Presa said Thursday.

Bulgaria's Roma minority is estimated at about 700,000 people or nine per cent of the population, with many living in miserable conditions.