Bulgarian couple claim Maria is their daughter

Bulgarian authorities were last night continuing to question a couple thought to be the parents of Maria, the mysterious blonde girl whose discovery in a Greek Roma camp has made global headlines.

The woman, Sasha Ruseva, was quoted as saying that desperate poverty had forced her to leave behind a baby in Greece and that Maria looked like she might be hers. “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.

“I don’t know if she is mine or not mine,” she said outside the police station in the town of Gurkovo in central Bulgaria, saying she had “not eaten and am sick” since seeing television images of Maria.