IT has now been 16 years since the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.
She was just three-years-old when she vanished from her family’s holiday home in Portugal in 2007.
Where is Praia da Luz?
Praia da Luz, known simply as Luz, is a parish located around four miles from Lagos in the Algarve, Portugal.
The community had a population of just 3,545 when a census was last carried out in 2011.
Once a small fishing village, it’s been dubbed “little Britain” for the concentration of Brits who take holidays there.
It is bordered to the south by the Atlantic Ocean.
When was Maddie last seen?
Kate and Gerry McCann were spending a week-long holiday in Luz with seven friends and eight children in all, including their three.
They had booked through the British holiday company Mark Warner Ltd and were placed in 5A Rua Dr Agostinho da Silva, an apartment owned by a retired teacher from Liverpool, one of several privately owned properties rented by the company.
On May 3, 2007, they left Maddie and her two siblings sleeping as they dined in a tapas restaurant within the Ocean Club resort where they were staying, just 55m away from the ground-floor department.
They had left the patio doors open in the apartment so they could check in on their children.
Her parents left their sleeping children at 8.30pm but checked on the children throughout the evening, with Kate discovering her daughter was missing at 10pm.
Maddie’s whereabouts remain unknown to this day, as Scotland Yard continue to investigate her disappearance.
LATEST ON MADELEINE MCCANN
What is the latest?
Portuguese police have apologised to the parents of Madeleine McCann on October 30, 2023 for the way they handled their daughter’s disappearance.
The cops have told BBC’s Panorama that a delegation of senior officers travelled from Lisbon to London earlier this year.
They met Gerry McCann, Madeleine’s father, and apologised for the way detectives investigated the case and treated the family.
Much of the damage was caused by one man – the original lead detective, Goncalo Amaral.
He was sacked from the investigation but went on to write a book and present a TV documentary accusing the McCanns of being involved in their daughter’s disappearance.
Metropolitan Police chief Cressida Dick confirmed on May 3, 2019, that the force had applied for more money from the Home Office to continue its Operation Grange search for Maddie.
Dick said: “We have active lines of inquiries and I think the public would expect us to see those through.
“A very small team continues to work on this case with Portuguese colleagues and we have put in an application to the Home Office for further funding.”
In March 2019 a new Netflix documentary, The Disappearance of Madeleine McCann, claimed the youngster was still alive.
On June 5, the government probe into looking for Maddie was given an extra £300,000 of funding.
Those still involved with the investigation are now said to spend a lot of their time eliminating known sex offenders and chasing down potential witnesses.
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