100 days of agony - Madeleine tragedy only one of many

WHEN a family endures the death of a young child, the pain can be almost unimaginable. When a child disappears, with no indication of whether the youngster is dead or alive, the grief must be all but unbearable.

That is what happened to Kate and Gerry McCann 100 days ago today when their three-year-old daughter Madeleine, who since turned four, disappeared from the Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, southern Portugal.

The McCanns were enjoying a family holiday, dining with a group of friends less than 100 metres from their apartment. They regularly checked on their three young children as they slept and it was during one of these calls that Kate discovered that Madeleine was missing.

The McCanns seem to be ordinary, decent people, and declared that they especially chose the venue because of the security and facilities it offered children.

Gerry McCann later described the “tidal wave” of devastation that swept out from that moment. Even the briefest consideration of some of the imaginings that might run through your mind if you were in that dreadful situation would stir the most dispassionate heart.

A world that uses violence, the most abject subjugation and paedophilia as the everyday vocabulary of online entertainment must be a very cold place for a parent wondering about a missing child. It would take a special resolve not to allow the horrible possibilities un-nerve even the calmest personality.

Though it is of little comfort to the McCanns, they are far from being alone in their anguish. Many thousands of children have gone missing in various circumstances in the past 100 days. In Ireland, the most recent figures available show that 5,995 people were reported missing during 2005, though only 75 of those were not traced during that year.

Though being the parent of a missing child brings a special anguish, the families of the 25,000 people who, according to the United Nations, die each day because of poverty or hunger can be no less distraught.

The death toll amounts to a little more than nine million people a year, of whom six million are children under the age of five.

The UN tells us that there are 800 million hungry people in the developing countries. The main causes are lack of safe drinking water and sanitation.

Maybe it is the vast scale of this never-ending tragedy that makes us feel so impotent and so willing to involve ourselves in a tragedy centred on one as innocent and photogenic as Madeleine.

It in no way undermines the authenticity of the concern so readily expressed for the McCanns’ terrible situation to point out that we ignore so many other tragedies.

Maybe it is a consequence of repetition, a consequence of becoming inured to tragedy we cannot easily influence but there is a question to be asked: why, of all the tragedies unfolding in our world has that of the McCanns remained so centre stage?

It is especially appropriate, as the 10th anniversary of the excesses surrounding the death of Princess Diana approaches, to consider if we are exploiting the pain of people in the midst of the greatest tragedy of their lives or if the constant glare of publicity might lead to a happy conclusion.

Such reflection will not ease the pain of the McCanns on this significant anniversary of their tragedy. Our thoughts and prayers are with them and all of those suffering the pain brought about by the premature loss of a loved one.