By Aaron Miller-
A young boy believed to be dead was found in southern Russia, after escaping the Romani settlement that kidnapped him in when he was a six-year-old, 16 years ago in 2000. The man claimed his name was Dmitry Mikhay.
The detainee immediately confessed he had not given his real name, and that he remembers being called Vasily. He was snatched by gypsies on his way home from an outdoor market where his mother was a trader.
When Police began to scan missing persons records, they used a name, as well as a large birthmark on Vasily’s chest.
DISCOVERY
It wasn’t long before they made a startling discovery. A name in the system was flagged up- that of ‘Vasily Musofranov’- a six-year old boy, ”missing two bottom front teeth, with a birthmark on his chest, and who disappeared 16 years ago from the small town of Shakty, 350 km away.
The 16 year old’s case had been opened as a murder investigation, back in 2002, and was left unsolved.
At one glance at the boy’s picture as a child, police immediately noticed that the boy looked like a grown-up version of the child in a photograph circulated in the media several times in the past decade and a half.
In order to verify their strong belief police had the right guy, they exhumed the body of Musofanov’s father for a DNA sample taken, and produced a perfect match.
Police say the young victim referred to his abductors as ”mother and father”, and his new siblings as ”brother and sister”
His hair was initially dyed black to avoid suspicion, and he was never sent to school, so is illiterate. After being forced to work and earn money for his abductors, he eventually grew resentful and successfully plotted his escape.
Musufonov ‘s parents are both dead now- his mother had a miscarriage and later died herself. She must have felt cursed to lose an unborn child, after losing a young child to kidnappers.
She never lived to see this day of freedom for her son, but he will live to enjoy the reality of his freedom. First, will be a building process in which the young boy can have his humanity back, and develop with dignity.
He will have to learn to read and write, and learn how to live with society without being treated like a slave.
