Police raid Romanian farm where troubled German teens were treated ‘like slaves’
- Prosecutors say children in the state-backed social programme were deprived of food, beaten repeatedly and subjected to ‘torture’
- Twenty children, aged 12 to 18, were in the programme’s care when authorities raided the farm and seven other houses
On Tuesday, riot police backed by a helicopter stormed a farm in Viseu de Sus village where a German couple set up the programme some 15 years ago to help dozens of troubled minors.
But now the German man and four Romanians stand accused of keeping children in “slavery-like conditions”, using “barbaric methods amounting to torture” and treating them in “humiliating and degrading” ways, prosecutors say.
They say the children were forced to “do exhausting physical labour”, deprived of food and beaten repeatedly under “Projekt Maramures” named after the county where it is based.
Twenty children, aged 12 to 18, were in the programme’s care – several of them at host families – when authorities raided the farm and seven other houses.
Berlin has said it had not been aware of any problems with the programme in the past 20 years. Some of the children have also dismissed the abuse allegations.