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Tenth anniversary of Madeleine McCann's disappearance

Madeleine McCann was three when she vanished in 2007
Madeleine McCann was three when she vanished in 2007

The parents of Madeleine McCann have vowed to do "whatever it takes, for as long as it takes" to find their daughter, who was three-years-old when she vanished during a family holiday in Praia da Luz on the Algarve in Portugal in 2007.

Last week, British detectives working on the case said they are now pursuing a "significant" line of inquiry.

Mrs McCann said: "We just have to go with the process and follow it through - whatever it takes, for as long as it takes. There is still hope that we can find Madeleine."

Asked how the family would get through the anniversary, she added: "Every day is another day without Madeleine.

"I think we'll get by as we have any other year really, we'll be surrounded by family and friends, you know, obviously we'll be there remembering Madeleine, as we always have."

A special service will be held at the Church of Nossa Senhora da Luz in Praia da Luz tonight for all missing people, including Madeleine.

A public gathering is also expected to take place in her home village of Rothley, Leicestershire, to mark the tenth anniversary of her disappearance.

Timeline of some of the events in the years following Madeleine's disappearance.

2007

3 May - Kate and Gerry McCann leave their three children asleep in their holiday apartment in Praia da Luz in southern Portugal while they dine with friends at a nearby tapas restaurant.

Nothing is amiss when Mr McCann checks on the youngsters just after 9pm, but when his wife goes back at about 10pm she finds three-year-old Madeleine missing.

Jane Tanner, one of the friends dining with the McCanns, reports seeing a man carrying a child earlier that night.

4 May - Sniffer dogs are brought in, the Spanish and border police and airports are notified, and volunteer teams continue combing the village, resort and beach for clues.

Fears grow that Madeleine has been abducted and friends of the McCanns accuse the Portuguese police of not doing enough to find her.

14 May - Detectives take Anglo-Portuguese property developer Robert Murat in for questioning and make him an "arguido", or formal suspect.

Officers also search the home he shares with his mother in Praia da Luz, just 100 yards from where the youngster vanished.

30 May - Mr and Mrs McCann meet the Pope in Rome in the first of a series of trips around Europe and beyond to highlight the search for their daughter.

11 August - Exactly 100 days after Madeleine disappeared, investigating officers publicly acknowledge for the first time that she could be dead.

7 September - During questioning of Mr and Mrs McCann, detectives make them both "arguidos" in their daughter's disappearance.

9 September - The McCanns fly back to England with their two-year-old twins Sean and Amelie.

2 October - Goncalo Amaral, the detective in charge of the inquiry, is removed from the case after criticising the British police in a Portuguese newspaper interview.

2008

21 July - The Portuguese authorities shelve their investigation and lift the "arguido" status of the McCanns and Robert Murat.

4 August - Thousands of pages of evidence from the Portuguese police files in the exhaustive investigation into Madeleine's disappearance are made public. They reveal details of the lines of inquiry pursued by detectives, witness statements and scores of previously unknown sightings of the little girl.

2012

25 April - Scotland Yard detectives say they believe Madeleine could still be alive, release an age-progression picture of how she might look as a nine-year-old, and call on the Portuguese authorities to reopen the case, but Portuguese police say they have found no new material.

2013

4 July - Scotland Yard confirms that it has launched its own investigation into Madeleine's disappearance two years into a review of the case.

It has "genuinely new" lines of inquiry and has identified 38 people of interest, including 12 Britons.

17 October - Scotland Yard says it has received more than 2,400 calls and emails following television appeals in the UK, Holland and Germany. Around another 1,250 calls were made to TV studios in the three countries.

24 October - Portuguese police confirm that a review of their original investigation has uncovered new lines of inquiry, and they reopen the case.

2014

29 January - British detectives fly to Portugal amid claims they are planning to make arrests.

3 June - Sniffer dogs and specialist teams are used to search an area of scrubland close to where Madeleine went missing.

2015

28 October - Scotland Yard's investigation into the disappearance has been cut from 29 officers to four.

2017

25 April - Kate and Gerry McCann describe the approaching tenth anniversary of their daughter's disappearance as a "horrible marker of time, stolen time" on the official Find Madeleine campaign website.