Portuguese police resume search for British girl missing since 2007

Police in Portugal said on Monday they planned to resume the search for a British child who disappeared in the country’s Algarve region in 2007, renewing international attention to Madeleine McCann’s disappearance.

In a statement, the judicial police of Portugal confirmed news media reports about the search and said it would begin in the coming days. It said the search, which Portuguese police coordinated, had been requested by German authorities and would be conducted in the presence of British officials.

It was unclear why German authorities had requested the search, although they had previously said they were investigating a German sex offender as a possible suspect.

While the Portuguese police statement did not name Madeleine, referring only to a British child who disappeared in the Algarve in 2007, The Associated Press reported that the effort was aimed at finding Madeleine. She was 3 when she disappeared on the night of May 3, 2007, while on holiday with her family in the beach resort of Praia da Luz.

That’s what a firefighter told me Reuters that police were preparing for a search near a dam in the southern Algarve region, about 50 kilometers from the resort where Madeleine disappeared. Reuters reported that police had set up blue tents and closed off roads to the dam and 20 officers had been deployed to the search.

Madeleine’s parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, said they left her and her siblings, the 2-year-old twins, in the apartment they were staying in while they ate at a nearby restaurant.

Mr McCann had returned to check on the children around 9pm and found nothing wrong. But when his wife returned to check on them an hour later, around 10 p.m., Madeleine was missing.

After the girl’s disappearance, Kate and Gerry McCann helped launch an international search, which included calls for help from British celebrities such as David Beckham and JK Rowling, and promised millions in rewards for information leading to her kidnapper’s arrest.

In 2020, German authorities said they did not expect to find the girl alive after more than a decade of false hopes and empty tips.

German authorities said they were investigating a German sex offender, identified by German news media only as Christian B., on suspicion of murder in connection with Madeleine’s disappearance. He lived in and around Algarve region sporadically from 1995 to 2007.

For a while, Portuguese authorities considered Madeleine’s parents suspects, but they were formally deleted.