Why couldn't Vika Maroz travel to Italy?

The Belarusian orphan girl, Vika Maroz could not make to spend her summer break in Italy. But she learned about her spoiled vacations before departure from the Homel airport.

The Italian newspaper La Reppublica reacted immediately to Vika’s failure to come to Italy, especially after the mayor of the Italian host town was set to welcome the girl on August 2.

La Reppublica: “Vika Maroz and her new foster family were not allowed to travel to Italy. She had to stay behind with her packed luggage and air tickets, after the authorities in Minsk suspended her departure. Mrs. Vaselwskaya who was guarding Vika-Maria could not leave Belarus.

The girl that found herself in the center of the conflict between Belarus the Giusto family was denied permit to departure. “We don’t understand why. We called them on the eve and everything sounded okay. We don’t understand what is going on,” says Camilla Dalccini, a lawyer for the family.

The European Radio for Belarus wanted to find out what exactly hindered the Belarusian girl from traveling to Italy. In May, a ERB correspondent talked to Vika’s guardian Alena Vasilewskaya said then that she would not object to Vika’s travel to Italy because Vika had very warm relations with the Italian family.

This time, Alena Vasilewskaya refused to comment on the developments. She only revealed that there were other people that could not travel as well.

“There were people who did not go. That’s it. I will not say anything more,” she told our correspondent.

Her words could not but alarm us and ERB immediately started calling various agencies in order to find out why the girl was banned from traveling abroad. But neither the Ministry of Education nor the education department of the Minsk region were aware of this incident.

Mikalaj Kulesh, the deputy chief of the education department, added that there was no ban for the girl’s travel outside Belarus.

Eventually, we managed to get the reasoning from the press office of the Border Control Committee, which said the girl and her guardian were banned from departing due to a banal reason.

“When children travel abroad together with their parents, there normally should be a statement in the parents’ passports that this kid is their child indeed. Naturally, guardians don’t have those statements in their passports. This woman had no documents to confirm that she was indeed Vika’s guardian. Children can travel abroad only with the consent of their parents or together with them.

This is a banal situation. The woman should have had documents to confirm that she is the guardian. She simply didn’t think about it. That’s it,” said a spokesperson for the Border Control Committee.

It is still unclear when Vika can eventually travel to her Italian hosts who this year produced their own child.

Photo: www.kp.by