A Roma Gypsy woman named Sasha Ruseva who currently resides in Bulgaria is having her DNA tested to see if Maria, the young girl found in a Roma camp last week is her biological daughter. Ruseva may also face charges of child selling, according to the Associated Press.
Greek officials said Thursday that tests have to prove whether or not she is the mother of Maria, but that her admission to officials that she once left a baby behind in Greece while working as an olive-picker years ago opened up an investigation on her motives for leaving the child behind, the AP reported.
The girl who is now believed to be 5 or 6 years old, was found during a raid of a Roma Gypsy camp in Greece last week and was taken into Greek custody after DNA proved she was not related to the couple she had been living with. The couple is being detained by Greek authorities and face charges of child abduction and document forgery, according to Reuters.
The couple continues to insist that the child was given to them by the mother who could not care for her, and they raised her as their own.
Ruseva, who is also of a darker complexion, told Bulgarian TV that she wanted to go back to get the child if the tests come back positive. She denied the exchange of money between her and the Gypsy couple years ago.
Bulgarian Interior Ministry chief secretary Svetlozar Lazarov said that during Thursday's questioning by police, Ruseva said she recognized the Greek Roma couple in the "Maria" case, whose pictures have been broadcast on TV, as the same people with whom she left her child while working in Greece, the AP reported.
After Maria did not match any missing child description, Greek police tracked Ruseva down in the town of Nikolaevo, where she has had two other children: a fair-skinned baby girl with dyed orange hair and a blond, pale-skinned young boy, according to the AP. Ruseva said she gave birth to the girl while working with the Roma camp where the girl was found.
She claimed she had to leave the child behind because she could not afford to take her home.
"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 on Bulgarian TV, according to the AP.
Prosecutors have pressed premliminary charges against Ruseva for "deliberately selling a child while residing out of the country" although they are still investigating and have no evidence that such was the case.
In a statement from the prosecutor's office, officials said that "a DNA test has been taken from Ruseva, and information has been collected about her trips to Greece in the last years."