For eight years, five Bulgarian nurses were locked in a Libyan prison, accused of intentionally infecting 426 Libyan children with HIV, and dreaming of the day they would get released and expose the charges as fraudulent.
But that day came and went more than a year ago and now the nurses find themselves facing an increasingly stark reality as they adjust to life back in Bulgaria.
While they are working with the producers of the Oscar-nominated Hotel Rwanda to make a film based on their story, the real life version has had anything but a Hollywood ending.
Although prominent Libyan authorities admitted that the nurses were tortured into confessing, some Bulgarians still believe the nurses are guilty.
Others view them as opportunistic and trying to exploit their situation for unreasonable compensation.
In reality, many of the nurses now say they are struggling to make ends meet.
“I’m very disappointed in humankind,” says one of the nurses, Valentina Siropulo.
“Not only because of the way we were treated in Libya but also the extreme negative reactions here in Bulgaria.”
Right from their detainment, Bulgarian officials treated the nurses as citizens who had committed a crime abroad and had to be extradited and tried domestically.
“[The Bulgarian government] framed it as a question of international justice, not whether they were guilty,” says
Ruslan Stefanov, an analyst at the Centre for the Study of Democracy in Sofia. “Many Bulgarians were not convinced of their innocence. And now that the nurses are back, some see them as ungrateful.”
The quintet is still working to clear their names and pressing the United Nations Human Rights Commission for compensation from Libya.
Due to bureaucratic policy, the nurses have even lost their government healthcare. They are now required to pay more than ten years’ payments that they missed while in prison, before they can have access to healthcare.
To date, the government has been unwilling to bend the rules for them.
Although a mobile phone company provided the nurses with modest apartments and mobile phones, some Bulgarians now use these small gains as cause for attack.
“How many millions did Bulgaria spend to protect them in Libya, and now they attack the government?” says a woman in Sofia.
The nurses were released in July 2007 after the European Union paid $400 million in compensation to the families of the Aids victims as part of a French-brokered deal.
Within an hour of reaching Sofia, the nurses were pardoned. Less than a month later, Muammar Gaddafi’s son, Saif Al Islam, appeared on Al Jazeera and admitted that the nurses were innocent.
Nevertheless, life remains challenging for the nurses.
Kristiyana Vulcheva was highly outspoken about their case when she returned but after more than a year of legal battles and public scepticism, she is reluctant to even speak with reporters over the phone.
“It’s not too much to ask for: just healthcare after spending eight years in prison,” Vulcheva says.
Among the other nurses, one ran for public office and lost. Another recently divorced, her marriage reportedly strained by the eight years apart from her husband.
Ashraf Al Hadjudj, a Palestinian internist who was imprisoned with the nurses, received Bulgarian citizenship after their release and has since married a Bulgarian woman. But in Sofia, he has been unable to get a hospital job.
Some Bulgarians remain empathetic to the nurses.
“They were victims there and now victims in their own country,” says Vera Gotzeva, a magazine editor in Sofia.
“But it’s worse here because they have also lost their identity and anonymity.”
The nurses say they are hoping to give back by working with a French foundation that helps Bulgarian orphans.
While the outcome of their legal battles remains uncertain, Siropulo hopes the film based on their ordeal will clear their names.
“This film would help the world understand our pain,” she says. “The more people in Bulgaria and in the world who realise this, the more likely it is such a thing will never happen again.”
