“We will leave no stone unturned,” was the eternal promise of her parents. Madeline McCannabout a three-year-old British girl who went missing on May 3, 2007 in Portugal, where her family was vacationing.

Since then, indeed, it seems that few stones have remained … untouched. Disappearance of little Madeleine, who was supposed to die this year she is 20this is another case related to tragic myths – which proves that the wounds, the parents in this case, close and eventually become scars only when the one who was lost forever is found, or at least something , which proves that it belongs to him.

The dramatic case of the search for Madeleine McCann returns – as it has for the past 16 years – as they resurface. new elements for her disappearance, new suspects, new places where some of her remains can ease the pain of her parents on the one hand, and bring those responsible to justice on the other.

New study in Portugal

Within days, the Portuguese police are conducting a new investigation based on recent information received by the German authorities, while they have reportedly discovered photos and videos of the territory owned by Christian Bricknerwho, since 2022, has been considered the prime suspect in the disappearance of a little girl.

Approximately 50 kilometers from the resort of Praia da Luz, where Madeleine disappeared, in Aranda dam artificial lakeon the outskirts of the city of Silves in southern Portugal, the authorities are looking for anything that could explain what happened and how.

The cooperating authorities represent Portugal, the UK and Germany, and the search was announced to last two days and focus mainly on the area around the artificial lake, although divers have of course also been called. In fact, the same place was explored in 2008, when bones were found, which were later considered to be the remains of animals.

However, German prosecutor Hans Christian Wolters said nothing would be made public until tangible results were obtained.

In the meantime, the police set up two tents for their forensics. The area was effectively designated as a no-fly zone so investigators could use drones to search for clues, the Guardian writes, while the main road leading to the man-made lake was blocked.

This is the first major operation of its kind since June 2014, when the London Metropolitan Police received permission from the Portuguese authorities to search Praia da Luz using dogs and ground penetrating radar (GPR) or ground penetrating radar.

“We won’t give up”

The case of Madeleine McCann of Leicestershire, England, has, as rarely happens, passed into the realm of legend, and each new piece of evidence arouses, often to the point of frenzy, relentless interest from the authorities and the public, which receives feedback from unanswered questions about what happened, where he is, who is to blame.

Tragic figures, besides the three-year-old victim, of course, are the parents, who never stopped believing that he was alive. “We won’t give it up” was their constant chorus for 16 years as London’s Metropolitan Police stripped down to Operation Grange. This insistence has been encouraged over the years by information coming to the authorities, especially when there are descriptions of a rare iris condition in her right eye known as an iris stump – information which, however, has so far come to nothing.

At the same time, various suspects were checked from time to time, among them, of course, Madeline’s parents· others have been cleared of speculation and accusations, others remain on the authorities’ list of suspects.

The main suspect in the disappearance

According to CNN, in April 2022, Portuguese and German officials officially named Christian Brickner, a German citizen who lived in the Algarve, Portugal’s southernmost point, between 1995 and 2007, as a suspect, in which he denied involvement, and was somehow controlled by the authorities back in 2020. In fact, according to the Portuguese broadcaster SIC, investigators knew the suspect was spending time in his caravan in an area he described as “his little paradise.”

However, according to the Guardian, a court in the German city of Braunschweig decided not to hear the case against Brickner over Madeleine’s disappearance on the grounds that its jurisdiction is not the suspect’s last residence in Germany, identified in the state of Saxony. -Anhalt.

This decision of the court, as we read in the British press, does not mean the automatic release of Brickner, who is serving a sentence, from prison. seven years in prison (until 2025) for the rape of a 72-year-old woman in the Algarve region, from where Madeleine disappeared.

Drama 16 years old

The current investigations are yet another chapter in a 16-year-old drama, and nearly nine years have passed since the last important – and, as a result, life-only – events took place in the disappearance case, which also became the subject of a documentary film “disappearance(“Fade Out”) for Netflix.

Back in 2014, British police were investigating three robbers who were in the area when Madeleine disappeared. At the same time, British authorities were investigating a man who raped five British women in the Algarve between 2004 and 2006. However, searches in the area proved fruitless, bolstering Madeleine’s parents’ belief that he might still be alive.

All these sixteen years the case was either closed or reopened. British authorities have obtained evidence, questioned suspects, the Home Office has repeatedly extended its grant to Scotland Yard to continue investigating the disappearance of a little girl while she and her younger twin brothers slept while their parents were away with their company. the restaurant of the sanatorium, 50 meters below, checking, of course, every half an hour the condition of the children.

Several suspects have been questioned and charges have been filed from time to time, starting with the parents, their company, a British holidaymaker who was near the family’s apartment at the time of the disappearance. Most of the suspects were brought in – at the urging of the British police and despite many years of hesitation by the Portuguese – the authorities were given a lot of information from citizens about where she could be seen – inside and outside Portugal. – Parents filed libel suits by a former Portuguese police inspector who published a book about the case.

And yet nothing has so far led to a resolution of the drama. The current events are yet another attempt at the hope that the parents should either be found alive or say goodbye to her forever and be able to recover, if ever, from those carefree holidays that caused them the greatest pain in order to feel someone .