I n December 1989, immediately after the fall of communism, the images of starving, naked and sick children found in overcrowded Romanian orphanages shocked the world. In the same month, Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena were executed by firing squad, just moments after a brief trial that found them guilty of genocide, subversion of state power, destruction of public property and theft.

Independent journalist Oliver Gillie travelled to Bucharest in January 1990 and was horrified by what he saw: hundreds of children chained to their cots, unlikely to survive the year, in what was the largest outbreak of non-inherited Aids among children anywhere in the world. The cause was thought to have been dirty needles used in immunisation, or blood transfusions.