Madeleine McCann’s devoted parents marked her 18th birthday yesterday with a vow never to stop looking for their missing daughter.
Kate and Gerry McCann still hope Madeleine will be found alive, 14 years after she disappeared on a family holiday in Portugal in 2007, shortly before her fourth birthday.
In a message posted on her milestone birthday, they said: “We love you and we’re waiting for you and we’re never going to give up.”
The couple also left cards and gifts in her room, which they have left untouched since she vanished.
Kate, 53, and Glasgow-born Gerry, 52, had asked friends to mark the day in a low-key manner.
The Facebook post came a week after they marked the “poignant” 14th anniversary of her disappearance.
Madeleine went missing from her family’s holiday apartment in the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz.
Prosecutors want to question German paedophile Christian Brueckner over her disappearance and claim to have evidence she is dead.
But Kate and Gerry, of Rothley, Leicestershire, refuse to give up hope.
In another Find Madeleine post last week they said they “need to know what happened to our lovely daughter”.
Scotland Yard’s hunt for her abductor continues, with four detectives working on Operation Grange.
A top-level summit between British, German and Portuguese detectives is due to take place in Lisbon this summer.
In January, police launched a push to find the “missing piece of the jigsaw” that could snare Brueckner. German and Portuguese investigators will carry out interviews of key witnesses in the Algarve who knew him.
Brueckner, 44, was named as a prime suspect by German prosecutors last June. They believe he abducted and killed her.
He is currently serving a seven-year term in Hanover for raping a pensioner in Praia da Luz in 2005.
Last week, the McCanns posted on Facebook: “Every May is tough – a reminder of years passed, of years together lost, or stolen. This year it is particularly poignant as we should be celebrating Madeleine’s 18th birthday. Enough said.
“The investigation to find Madeleine and her abductor has continued. We hang on to the hope, however small, that we will see Madeleine again.
“We need to know what has happened to our lovely daughter, no matter what.”
