| |
LONDON: More than 40 million people have visited the website set up for a four-year-old British girl who disappeared two weeks ago during a family holiday in Portugal, its organisers said Friday.
"Keep looking!" implored a message on www.findmadeleine.com, which was launched on Wednesday as the hunt for Madeleine McCann snowballed into an international cause.
Pledges of donations were meanwhile flooding into a fund which was launched with the website to raise money to help her parents Gerry and Kate McCann continue searching for their daughter.
Leading businessmen, sportsmen and individuals had by the weekend offered rewards totalling more than 2.5 million pounds (US$5 million, 3.6 million euros) for her safe return.
Michael Wright, speaking to a news conference in Portugal, also said that posters bearing Madeleine's face will soon appear across Europe, citing help from individuals, small firms and multinationals.
British television channel Sky News said an airline and a major restaurant chain were among the multinational firms that had offered to put up posters of the missing girl at their premises across the continent.
Relatives fear that the girl's suspected kidnapper or kidnappers had already taken her out of Portugal.
Madeleine disappeared May 3 from a hotel bedroom in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz, where her family was holidaying.
Her parents were eating in a nearby restaurant while the girl slept with her twin siblings.
Portuguese police said Thursday they were still gathering evidence but did not yet have enough information to make any arrests.
Police on Tuesday identified a 33-year-old British man as a formal suspect but said they did not have enough evidence to charge him with any crime.
A house where the man lived in Praia da Luz has been searched by police several times.
The media has identified him as Robert Murat and in an interview with one television station he protested his innocence. - AFP/yy
|
