Sasha Ruseva, who says she gave Maria to another Roma family due to poverty, has nine children aged 2 to 20
Bulgarian authorities said on Wednesday they would take into care seven brothers and sisters of Maria, the four-year-old whose discovery in neighbouring Greece captured global attention.
DNA tests confirmed that Sasha Ruseva, 35, is Maria's biological mother. The child's blue eyes and blonde hair aroused the suspicions of Greek police when they raided a Roma camp this month.
Ruseva and her husband, both Bulgarian Roma, have nine other children aged between 2 and 20 and live in poverty, occupying one room in a crumbling house in the town of Nikolaevo, 280km east of Sofia.
TV footage, which showed the children in shabby clothes sleeping on a mud floor and speaking little Bulgarian, sparked public outrage.
"We decided to accommodate four of the kids with foster families," Diana Kaneva, head of the agency for social assistance in the area, told Reuters on Wednesday.
"Two children will be sent to a state institution and one will be placed with relatives of the family," she said, adding that the measures were temporary and contacts between children and their parents would be encouraged by social workers.
Two of the couple's children are over 18 and not subject to state protection.
Maria, dubbed the blonde angel by Greek media, is now in the care of the Athens-based charity Smile of the Child.
On Tuesday, Bulgarian authorities said they would take steps to bring her back to the Balkan country.
Ruseva, who said she left Maria as a seven-month-old baby with a couple in the Roma community in Greece because she was too poor to care for her, has also said she would like to take her back.
Both parents are unemployed and live on welfare payments. Ruseva is under investigation over whether she was paid for handing over her child – a claim she denies. The couple in Greece have been charged there with abducting a minor and detained.
The case has illustrated the plight of Roma gypsies in Bulgaria, the European Union's poorest member state.
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