Story By: Anastasia Smirnova, Sub Editor: Joseph Golder,Agency: Central European News
Russian officials have promised a full enquiry after a dad was allowed to collect his daughter from a children’s home promising to look after her – and then abandoning her in a rubbish dump.
The girl who is believed to have spent Christmas on the tip was found living in a tent used by homeless scavengers searching the dump for scraps in the city of Odessa in south-central Ukraine.
The girl, identified only by her name Anastasia, has reportedly been seen at the tip several days previous to police turning up on 30 December and handing her over to social workers who returned her to the care home.
Police are investigating why the three other homeless people she was sharing a tent with had not reported her to officials.
Children’s worker Nata Samokhina, who eventually discovered the girl, said: “It is incredible how many people passed by and did not pay attention to her, none of them called the police.”
Nata confirmed that the girl’s biological father, whose name was not reported, had collected the child from the orphanage in June this year but had simply decided it was too much work for him, and had abandoned her.
Valentina Kartasheva from the orphanage said: “We did not want to give her to him, we had a feeling. But we had to obey the law. Thank God she is alive. She is currently in a state of shock.“
Kartasheva has stressed that after undergoing all the necessary medical checks, Anastasia, whose age has not been reported, would return to her friends that she had in the children’s home.
Representatives of the orphanage have stressed that they would do their best to make sure Anastasia’s father loses his parental rights to prevent him from trying to claim her again.
Netizen ‘Kostalevskiy’ said: “This is just crazy, he took this child to make her into a hobo. He should get jailed.”
And ‘dada Jora’ commented: “This is such a shameful event!”
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