It is believed that the search in the reservoir area will continue for several days. The area of police interest is about 50 kilometers from the place of disappearance.
The British girl who disappeared without a trace in Portugal in 2007 Madeleine McCann trying to find a solution to the case again.
At the request of the German authorities, the Portuguese authorities are investigating the Arade artificial lake in the southern part of the country and its surroundings. of the British broadcasting company BBC (you will switch to another service) according to the report, there are a total of four objects in the area that the police intend to investigate in the coming days.
In addition to Portuguese authorities, German and British authorities are present.
Today, the first day of the investigation, the researchers moved in a rubber boat in the artificial lake and explored the terrain with the help of a dog, among other things. The researchers also excavated the soil.
According to the BBC, the police were seen moving several bags of evidence from the area, the contents of which, however, are not known.
The area to be investigated is about 50 kilometers from where McCann disappeared.
Three-year-old McCann, who was on holiday with his family, went missing in Praia da Luz in the Algarve.
“Two facts give rise to hope”
Formerly head of the Center for Combating Child Abuse Jim Gamble says in a BBC interview that he sees two reasons for hope in the Madeleine investigation. One is that the German police have a suspect in the crime and the investigation is actively continuing.
– The second is that at some point in this case there must be a breakthrough. At some point, luck has to turn and the right thing has to happen so that Madeleine’s parents Cover and Gerry will get some kind of peace and the world will know what happened to Madeleine McCann, Gamble estimates.
However, an anonymous source from the Reuters news agency in the Portuguese police doubts that there is no chance of a breakthrough in the searches being carried out now.
German authorities have named a German sex offender as a suspect in the McCann case, but he has not been charged.
The man in question was staying in Portugal at the time of the disappearance and, according to media reports, he often spent his time at the artificial lake that is now under investigation.
German police said in 2020 that Madeleine is presumed dead and a suspected German man is responsible for her death. The man is currently in prison serving the sentence he received for the rape he committed in Portugal.
The evening at the hotel ended with a disappearance that shook the world
The disappearance that attracted worldwide attention started when the McCann doctor couple, who were vacationing in Portugal’s Praia da Luz, put their three children to bed on the evening of May 3, 2007.
Madeleine and her two siblings slept in the vacation apartment of the apartment hotel Ocean Club while Gerry and Kate McCann spent the evening with their friends in the restaurant of the hotel area.
The distance between the family’s vacation apartment and the restaurant was several tens of meters. Since the children of friends were also sleeping in their rooms, the parents of different families took turns to check on the children of others to make sure everything was okay.
When it was Kate McCann’s turn to check, she noticed that her daughter was missing from the room on the lowest floor and that the window in the room, which had been closed before, was open.
The Portuguese police began investigating the disappearance and interviewed both hotel staff and customers. Portugal’s borders and airports were alerted, and the parents made a public appeal to anyone who knew anything about the matter, as well as directly to the kidnapper, to return Madeleine.
Despite international attention and a 16-year investigation, the case is still a mystery.
Sources: AFP, Reuters, AP