BELARUS NEWS AND ANALYSIS

DATE:

30/09/2006

Belarussian orphan held by Italian family returns home

MOSCOW. Sept 30 (Interfax) - Vika Moroz, the girl at the center of an Italian-Belarussian row, has returned to Minsk.

Moroz spent several summers with Alessandro Giusto and Maria Chiara Bornacin under a rehabilitation program for Belarussian children from the areas affected by the Chernobyl disaster.

This summer, Giusto and Bornacin refused to send Moroz back to Belarus, claiming that she had suffered abuse at the orphanage where she lived in Belarus.

Despite a court writ ordering her return, Giusto and Bornacin refused to hand Moroz over, sending her into hiding and sparking a row between Minsk and Rome.

Moroz was discovered by Italian Carabineers several days ago in northern Italy, where she was staying with the couple's parents.

She was flown to Minsk on Saturday, where she is due to be returned to her orphanage, Russia's Channel One television station reported.

Source:

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/politics/28.html?id_issue=11596710