KEY POINTS:
Kate and Gerry McCann will broaden their high-profile search for their missing four-year-old daughter into a wider campaign on the issues of child trafficking and abduction.
The couple are planning to mark the 50th day since Madeleine McCann disappeared with the release of 50 balloons in 50 countries.
"We are going to tie it in with other missing kids, " said Mr McCann. The event on Friday comes after a six-week tour of Europe and north Africa during which the McCanns spoke to politicians and child welfare groups.
Mr McCann said: "We have had an amazing response from the groups we have met who say they are having a huge spin-off from the publicity surrounding Madeleine. "We were anxious about going to their countries and asking for help finding Madeleine but they have said 'what you are doing is amazing and it is helping us."
John McCann, Madeleine's uncle, also told a newspaper: "We are at the stage where we're feeling comfortable about broadening the issue. Criminal abductions of children are happening fairly regularly across the world. It's horrible. It's a political issue that's low on the agenda but should be higher."
Madeleine disappeared 46 days ago from the family's holiday apartment in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz.
The McCanns will hold a balloon launch there, and Germany, France, Australia, Dubai, Canada, America and El Salvador are among the countries expected to take part.
Ten launches are planned for UK locations where the McCanns have family or friends, including Glasgow, Liverpool and Leicester, and in Ireland and Guernsey.
The family were said to be "dismayed" at a comment made today by Chief Inspector Olegario Sousa of the Portuguese Policia Judiciaria, who said potentially crucial forensic evidence may have been unwittingly destroyed by the McCanns and their friends crowding into the bedroom Madeleine disappeared from in the hours after the alarm was raised.
More than 20 people went into the McCann's apartment at the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort on the night of May 3, Ch Insp Sousa told the Portuguese newspaper Diario de Noticias.
Among them were friends, family, other holidaymakers and staff from the Ocean Club resort who touched furniture and opened and closed doors, he said. He told the paper: "The presence of so many people - especially in the room where the little girl slept with her brother and sister could have at least complicated the work of the forensic team. At the very worst they would have destroyed all the evidence. This could prove to be fatal for the investigation."
A source close to the family said: "It's insensitive at the very least. It's inevitable that there were people in the bedroom."
Yesterday the McCanns attended a two-hour church ceremony in Praia da Luz where prayers were said for Madeleine. Mr McCann spoke at the weekend of his terror at the prospect of his daughter's body being found following the publication in the Dutch newspaper De Telegraaf of a letter suggesting that she may be buried under rocks nine miles from Praia da Luz.
A police search of the area was called off after four hour but the McCanns had to wait 48 hours before further investigations were completed and the tip-off was pronounced to be a false alarm.
Mr McCann said: "The thought of a very public search with Madeleine coming out of it dead was extremely upsetting. Kate was not good. I managed to cling on to thinking: 'We need to find out first if this is credible'. At the very best it was extremely unfortunate - but it may happen again."
- INDEPENDENT
