MADELEINE MCCANN VANISHED from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, Portugal on 3 May 2007 – 10 years ago today.
The three-year old Briton’s disappearance sparked a huge missing person hunt.
However, in the intervening decade, several leads failed to materialise into significant breakthroughs in the case.
Her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, gave an interview to BBC News at the weekend, renewing their appeal for information.
https://www.facebook.com/bbcnews/videos/10154628811127217/
The couple said they remain hopeful they will one day be reunited with their daughter and are encouraged by the “real progress” British police have made in the case in the past five years.
During the interview, her mother Kate said: “Every day is another day without Madeleine. I think it’s just that number, it’s that 10-year mark which makes it more significant I think, because it’s a reminder of how much time has gone by.”
Her father Gerry added:
I think that day and the poignancy of it, we don’t tend to go back to the time because it’s so draining, but inevitably on anniversaries and on her birthday, they are the hardest days. By far.
The couple had gone out for dinner in a nearby restaurant while their three children slept in the apartment on the night Madeleine disappeared.
A number of theories were examined by police, including that the abduction could have been the result of a burglary gone wrong.
Scotland Yard recently said detectives are still pursuing “critical” leads in the case. British police scaled back their search in 2015 after launching a new investigation in 2011.
Kate posted a Facebook message last week saying the couple and their two children were “bracing ourselves for the next couple of weeks”.
“Most days are similar to the rest – another day. May 3rd 2017 – another day. But ten years – a horrible marker of time, stolen time,” she wrote.
The McCanns have vowed to challenge a court ruling that cleared a former Portuguese detective of breaching libel laws after he published a book alleging they were involved in Madeleine’s disappearance.
- Contains reporting from © AFP 2017 and AP
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