In 1990 the horror of Romania’s orphanages was revealed to the world. So why,
after millions of EU funds have been poured into the country to eradicate
such institutions, do thousands of vulnerable youngsters remain
incarcerated? Angela Levin reports
It is not often that you get a glimpse of hell but a version of it exists down
an unmade road in Bistrita, northern Romania. There stands a place that
would be unfit for animals, let alone humans, but it is the only home known
to 35 inmates, ranging in age from a few weeks to early adulthood. All have
some degree of physical or mental disability. The building has a small room
where 10 so-called “babies” – including a pallid five-year-old and a
malnourished and blind seven-year-old – sleep and spend every waking hour.
It was lunchtime when we visited and the empty-eyed children were either
being given a bottle or fed mashed potato in watery milk by elderly female
carers.