Gerry and Kate McCann do not believe a young girl spotted in India is their missing daughter, their spokesman said today.
The Chandigarh Tribune reported yesterdat that a British woman had seen a youngster bearing a remarkable likeness to Madeleine who disappeared from a holiday apartment in Portugal four years ago.
But after studying a photo of the child, the McCanns announced that the girl was not their daughter. This confirmed what the parents of the child in India said yesterday evening.
McCann spokesman Clarence Mitchell said the couple were ‘certain’ the girl was not Madeleine, who would now be eight-years-old.
The news came as another blow in the search for Madeleine, who had many friends and cousins here in Donegal.
She had spent Easter 2007 in the county, just a few weeks before she was taken. She is pictured above with her Donegal relatives during that trip.
Mr Mitchell said: “Kate and Gerry do not believe the child seen in India was Madeleine. They have seen photographic evidence and concluded that it was not her.
“We remain grateful for people’s vigilance around the world. Madeleine is still out there and the search for her very much continues.”
The sighting was made in the northern city of Leh which lies in the state of Jammu and Kashmir. It’s the northernmost state of India and is situated mostly in the Himalayas.
The report in the Tribune said a British woman raised concerns with other tourists that they had found the missing girl.
An American tourist is said to have tried to take the girl from the couple.
However the French woman and her Belgian husband, who had their passports copied by Leh Police, insist that they are the parents of the girl.
