The anguished parents of Madeleine McCann, the British girl missing for more than a week after appparently being snatched from a Portuguese vacation resort, have made a fresh appeal for her return.
"Words cannot describe the anguish and despair that we are feeling," said Madeleine's father, Gerry McCann.
"Please, please, do not hurt her. Please do not scare her, please tell us where to find her," the girl's mother, Kate McCann, said in a video plea for the girl's release.
Police say Madeleine, who turns four on Saturday, was abducted from her parent's resort apartment in Portugal's Algarve. The McCanns had left their daughter in bed as they dined nearby.
Amid fierce media criticism in the UK of Portuguese police efforts to find the toddler, Portugal's ambassador in London , Antonio Santana Carlos, released a statement Friday saying, "Trust the authorities. They're doing their best."
But British media filming roadblocks on Portugal's border with Spain caught police sitting in their cars and waving vehicles by during a recent rainshower.
Andrew Forrester, from Wales, was helping search for Madeleine and found the effort of Portuguese police underwhelming.
Portuguese police said they were following procedures and that they operated differently than their counterparts in the UK.
Armando Ferreira, president of the National Police Union, also defended the search.
"Portuguese police are making a great effort. I have colleagues volunteering during their days off to help," he said, according to a Reuters news service report.
"We're doing everything to find the child alive," Reuters quoted Portugal's President Anibal Cavaco Silva as saying.
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