Are These 'Kidnapped' Maria's Siblings? Police Quiz Bulgarian Parents Of Albino Children

Are These 'Kidnapped' Maria's Siblings? Police Quiz Bulgarian Parents Of Albino Children

The resemblance is striking. The blonde hair. The blue eyes, The white skin. The wide noses. Could these children be the siblings of Maria, the little girl allegedly kidnapped and found living with a gypsy couple?

That's the question being posed by detectives in Greece who have taken DNA tests from a Bulgarian family to determine whether they are the 'blonde angel's' mother and father.

According to the Daily Mail, there is more compelling evidence than looks alone to link Bulgarians Sasha Ruseva, 35, and her husband Atana Rusev, 37, to little Maria.

They registered the birth of a child four years ago at a Greek hospital just an hour from the settlement where the she was found.

Pictures from the central Bulgarian village near to the town of Stara Zagora show the family have several children of a similar complexion to Maria. Two are believed to be albino.

The Mail says it has seen a copy of a birth certificate, stating that the Mrs Ruseva gave birth to a girl on January 31, 2009 at the general hospital in Lamia, 45 miles from Farsala, where Maria was born.

The document lists no name for the baby – who had not yet been baptised – but the birth date matches that given by Salis and Dimolpoulou to police.

The parents' identity cards, also seen by the Mail, shows they were born near Stara Zagora.

The Bulgarian couple were married in 1996 and had two other children prior to the baby at the centre of the case.

And apparently, both Lamia, where the child was born, and Nova Zagora, close to the area the Bulgarian couple hail from, are known to have been hubs for baby trafficking in the past, the paper says.

The Greek Roma couple who posed as Maria's parents for four years - Hristos Salis, 39, and Eleftheria Dimopoulou, 40, - are believed to have bought the child for £850. They are currently in custody awaiting trial for child abduction.

Greek police are now awaiting the results of a DNA tests to determine whether the little blonde girl is the Bulgarian woman's.

'There is a resemblance, but how should I know if she is mine or not?,' the thin, dark-complexioned Ruseva told reporters, clutching a small, freckled and pale-skinned child of two or three with dyed red hair.

Neighbours of the Bulgarian woman said she has at least four children who are 'very blonde' like Maria.

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