EON

Lisbon/London  – Portuguese police were Thursday searching an area where British toddler Madeleine McCann disappeared six weeks ago as the girl’s parents criticized the publicity surrounding an anonymous letter claiming to know the spot where the child was “buried.”

The latest search, with tracker dogs, focussed on an area some 15 kilometres from the resort of Praia da Luz, on the Algarve, where Madeleine was abducted on May 3.

The renewed police activity was sparked by an anonymous letter received Wednesday by the Dutch newspaper, De Telegraaf, which described the spot where Madeleine’s body was allegedly to be found.

Her parents, Gerry and Kate, said Thursday they had been “very upset” that the existence of the letter had become known before its “credibility” had been examined.

“We feel strongly that this was an irresponsible piece of journalism, and even if it were true, it is insensitive and cruel,” they said in a statement on their own website.

The Dutch newspaper, which did not publish the letter, said the original had been passed on to police in Portugal.

Portuguese police warned reporters not to disturb the search. Police inspector Olegario Sousa said there was a danger that reporters could damage evidence.

Police also warned helicopters against flying above the area for fear that they would adversely affect the tracker dogs.

The letter claimed that the four-year-old was lying buried under rocks in deserted scrubland. It came with a map, with crosses marked on it, reports from Holland said.

The information was being taken seriously because it is thought to be similar to a letter sent to the same newspaper last year, giving details of the location of the bodies of two missing Belgian girls.

Stacey Lemmens, 7, and her step-sister, Nathalie Mahy, 10, disappeared while playing outside in Liege on June 10 last year.

Their bodies were found on June 29, a day after De Telegraaf received two maps marked with crosses and handwritten text.

“We received an anonymous letter with a map in it marked with the spots where Madeleine was buried,” a source at the newspaper was quoted as saying Wednesday.

Madeleine’s parents, Gerry and Kate McCann, have launched an unprecedented international campaign to find their daughter, who was taken in her sleep with her two-year-twin siblings lying beside her.

The parents were eating in a nearby restaurant in the holiday complex at the time, and were checking regularly on their children.

The McCanns visited the Netherlands last week as part of a European search for their daughter. They have said they will stay in Portugal until the child is found.

The couple, who are both doctors from Leicestershire, central England, lived in Amsterdam for a year in 2004 when Madeleine was a baby.

They said Thursday: “One can imagine how upsetting it is for Kate and I to hear of such claims through the media, and if every piece of information was published like this there would be nothing else in the newspapers.”