Parents pray for Madeleine miracle

The parents of missing four-year-old Madeleine McCann made a personal pilgrimage to the holiest site in Portugal today to pray for a miracle.

Gerry and Kate McCann travelled to the Marian shrine of Fatima to ask for their daughter’s safe return.

As they were visiting Fatima, police in Portimao on the Algarve were re-interviewing two people as witnesses in the case.

It was understood that Robert Murat, the sole official suspect, was not among them.

A source said that the two people being interviewed today were a man and a woman, one Portuguese, one foreign.

They are believed to be Mr Murat’s lover German Michaela Walczuch and her estranged Portuguese husband Luis Antonio.

But a senior police source described the questioning as “normal and routine”.

Mr and Mrs McCann arrived at Fatima just before 11am followed by a small crowd of pilgrims holding long thin candles.

As they approached the main sanctuary containing the spot where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared in 1917, the couple had to make their way through a crowd of onlookers.

They slipped into the back of a Spanish language Mass in a covered area in front of the Chapel of Apparitions just as two priests were elevating the host.

They were showered with hugs and kisses from pilgrims.

As they made their way towards the side chapel for private prayer, one man stopped them to say simply: “We are all praying for you.”

Pushing a wheeled Zimmer frame covered in an Irish flag and a card reading “Ireland prays for Madeleine”, 71-year-old Anne McManus, from West Belfast, clutched Mrs McCann’s arm.

Mrs McManus, who has 10 children, 50 grandchildren and 30 great grandchildren, was in Portugal for a week’s holiday when she heard that the McCanns would be visiting the shrine.

Accompanied by husband William, 72, the couple had staff at their hotel make banners covered in shamrocks with the message “Ireland prays for Madeleine”.

Mrs McManus said: “I prayed for God to help everybody, especially to help these people, for the child to come home.”