ogQ!(U~$(KGrHgoOKjYEjlLmS1ctBJ1K-4Uyh!~~_7.JPG?set_id=81 "i-need-a-martini"){kind=avatar}
- Unidentified girl found living in a Roma gypsy camp in central Greece
- Man, 39, and woman, 40, arrested and charged with abducting a minor
- The girl has fair hair and pale skin and bears no resemblance to them
- DNA testing proved she was not related to the couple
- Charity now caring for the girl requests global hunt to find her real parents
Who is she? Police are appealing for help identifying this four-year-old girl who was found on a gypsy camp in Greece after she was allegedly abducted
Greek authorities have requested international help to identify a four-year-old girl found living in appalling conditions in a gypsy camp with a couple whom they have arrested and charged with abducting her.
The child was found on Wednesday near Farsala in central Greece during a routine search of the camp by police looking for drugs and weapons.
The girl reportedly sparked one of the officer's curiosity as she is blonde, pale skinned and bore no resemblance to the other Roma children or the couple who claimed to be her parents.
A 39-year-old man and a 40-year-old woman have been arrested and charged with abducting a minor.
Police said they offered conflicting accounts about the girl, one claiming that she was found in a blanket, the other claiming she had been handed to them by strangers.
Police said today that DNA testing proved the girl, who is believed to be called Maria, was not related to the couple.
'Her features suggest that she might be from an eastern or northern (European) country,' regional police chief Panayiotis Tzavaras said.
Police have notified Interpol for assistance.
Detectives say they also found drugs and unregistered firearms in other parts of the settlement, which is about 280 kilometers (170 miles) north of Athens.
The police statement said the couple claimed to have a total 14 children, and had registered different numbers with authorities in three different parts of Greece.
Officers found three minors living with them in the settlement who appear to be their children - although that hasn't yet been verified by DNA testing.
The case bears a disturbing similarity to theories about the disappearance of British toddler Madeleine McCann, who went missing on a family holiday in Portugal on May 3, 2007.
The girl is now in the care of the charity 'A child's smile,' which said today it has sought the assistance of European and global groups for lost or abused children in tracking her parents.
She does not speak other languages than Roma but appears to understand Greek and is being communicated with by sign language.
She was said to traumatised when she arrived at her care home but has since settled and is living in a safe family environment with other children of her age.
Distress: Dirty and grimacing as her photo is taken, the little girl is now the centre of an international appeal. Authorities hope her parents can be found so the family can be reunited
Police said the child was found near Farsala in central Greece during a crackdown on illegal activities by Roma
A medical examination is ongoing.
Panayiotis Pardalis, a spokesman for the charity, said: 'It was obvious that she was not a Roma girl.
'She was afraid and under some psychological pressure when she arrived. Colleagues have been trying to communicate but are struggling.
'She seems to understand Greek but cannot speak it. She was living under bad conditions and was very dirty but is now safe.'
Charity director Costas Giannopoulos said the child was undergoing medical examinations.
'We are shocked by how easy it is for people to register children as their own,' he told private Skai TV.
i-need-a-martini wroteAnd I don't understand all this speculation about her being albino. She had a DNA test to confirm who her biological parents were. If she was Albino, the DNA test would have shown that also. And, as with everything else with this case, if she was albino then that news would have been splashed over every paper in Europe and the rest of the world. So I think we can safely assume she is not an albino.
Why do you think that DNA test for parentage, which only looks at about dozen of gene markers would show the gene for albinism? These tests are preset formulas.
Why are people here so horrified about the fact that the reason Maria is so pale is because the dark genes here parent have are not expressed = she is an albino? 
"The word “albinism” refers to a group of inherited conditions. People with albinism have little or no pigment in their eyes, skin, or hair. They have inherited altered genes that do not make the usual amounts of a pigment called melanin. One person in 17,000 in the U.S.A. has some type of albinism. Albinism affects people from all races. Most children with albinism are born to parents who have normal hair and eye color for their ethnic backgrounds. Sometimes people do not recognize that they have albinism. A common myth is that people with albinism have red eyes. In fact there are different types of albinism and the amount of pigment in the eyes varies. Although some individuals with albinism have reddish or violet eyes, most have blue eyes. Some have hazel or brown eyes. "
