Sixteen years after the disappearance of Madeleine McCann, then three years old, in the south of Portugal, according to the media, the police want to start a new search operation. The searches start on Tuesday at the Arade reservoir and are expected to last two to three days, the Lusa news agency reported this Monday, citing the Portuguese Judiciary Police. Other media also reported on the new search operation, citing the police.
According to Lusa, this new search is taking place at the request of the German police. In addition to Portuguese and German officers, British police officers are also expected to participate. The Braunschweig public prosecutor’s office, which is investigating a German man previously convicted on suspicion of murder in the “Maddie case”, initially declined to comment. The “Judicial Police” in Portugal also did not respond to a request for now.
The Arade reservoir is located about 50 kilometers northeast of the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz. There, Maddie disappeared from a resort vacation on May 3, 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday. Investigators suspect she was kidnapped and murdered. However, a body was never found. The last known major search operation in this case took place almost three years ago, in the summer of 2020.