Does Zahara's Birth Mother Want To Take Her Back From Angelina Jolie? - Page 2
Angelina had seen Zahara in the orphanage, horridly malnourished and suffering from rickets, and had nursed her to health and adopted her into her family. She adopted her through an agency called Wide Horizons For Children, which claims that since 1974 they have placed 10,000 children with families from the West. Apparently, they were told that Zahara's mother was indeed dead:
Dr Tsegaye Berhe, head of the agency in Ethiopia, said he had been told Zahara's mother was dead at the time of the adoption and had the official papers to prove it."We have to trust the documents we received. She (Almaz) has signed, three witnesses have signed, but the document is saying something different to what she is saying now. She said her daughter had died."
And in a move some might regard as intimidation, Dr Berhe added that he had asked the government to instruct Ethiopian police to investigate whether the grandmother had lied to the Kebele.
"We have already talked to the government. The grandmother has given two statements. One that the mother is dead, another that she is alive. So we have already told the government what she is doing and that it has to take action now because it is the government she's made to look foolish.
"It's a big scandal to say something then another thing the next day. That will make a big problem for her."
The problem is that the grandmother can't read, and doesn't know for sure what it was that she signed or just what it said:
Dr Berhe produced the paperwork he said was signed by Almaz and three other witnesses testifying that Zahara's mother had died - but refused to allow The Mail on Sunday to copy or photograph it.We have spoken to one of the three witnesses named in the document, Asegadech Asefaw, who backs up Almaz's account that she told officials her daughter had run away. Another of Almaz's former neighbours, Bekelech Haile, says she also confirmed Almaz's version of events but, strangely, her name does not appear on the document shown to The Mail on Sunday. The witnesses say they have never heard of the name that does.
Almaz said: "I cannot read or write. I don't know what they wrote but what I said was that my daughter ran away, not that she was dead."
Dr. Berhe also says that while Angelina has made no attempt to contact any surviving members of Zahara's family, as he says he arranges for adoptive families to do, he cites intense media attention at the time of the adoption as the reason why.
The blame for this debacle seems to lie at the feet of Girma Degu, the man who took Zahara from her grandmother and brought her to the orphanage:
Meanwhile, Wide Horizons For Children moved rapidly to distance itself from Girma, the man who supplied both Zahara and the paperwork apparently proving she was an orphan. Continued on the next page
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