A campaign to bring a horrifically burnt child to Britain for life saving treatment took a sinister twist last night.

The parents of seven-year-old Mariana, who was doused in petrol and set on fire by Russian mafia thugs have disappeared.

A 14-year-old cousin has taken the place of little girl's doting mother at the hospital bedside she has not deserted since the child was rushed to hospital.

Plastic surgeon Charles Viva has offered to operate free of charge on Mariana who has 85 percent degree burns, if she can be brought to Teesside, the home of the charity Convoy Aid.

Mariana cannot be brought to Britain unaccompanied by one of her parents. Passports have been prepared for both Mariana and her mother for the emergency airlift and are waiting to be collected.

The parents' disappearance coincides with photographs published in newspapers in Romania purporting to show Mariana in an intensive care bed linked to intravenous tubes and surrounded by doctors and nurses. But Convoy Aid founder Rod Jones says the little girl in the photographs is not Mariana.

The 55-year-old said last night: "I have got people running all over the place in Romania trying to trace the parents. I have no idea where they can be, their own families have not seen them.

"I am very worried about the whole situation. I am concerned as to their whereabouts and very nervous about what is going on.''

Mariana had a gallon of petrol poured over her and set alight by mobsters after her forestry commission manager father refused to turn a blind eye to a multi million pound theft of timber.

People across the North-East have sent the charity donations large and small to raise the £10,000 needed to bring Mariana to Teesside for life saving treatment. Several pensioners moved by the little girl's plight have dug deep into their life savings to help.

Mr Jones said: "It's quite suspicious they have gone missing at this time. The passports are ready, yet we cannot do anything without the parents.''

After Mariana was turned into a human torch, the family home was burned to the ground.