"We can understand why the security guard called
the police because the child looks similar to Madeleine in lots of
respects." In the past seven days Belgian investigators have been
alerted to 30 "sightings" of the then three-year-old, who vanished
from her family's holiday flat in Praia da Luz, Portugal, in May
last year.
They come a week after a little blonde, blue-eyed
girl was spotted pleading with an Arab woman in English to be
allowed to go home outside the KBC Bank in the west of Brussels.
CCTV images show her walking hand-in-hand with the
veiled Moroccan, in the run-down Arab-dominated Molenbeek St Jean
quarter.
Belgian Federal Prosecutor Lieve Pellens, who is
co-ordinating checks on the sightings, said: "We have received 30
new leads in the past week.
"Some claim to have seen Madeleine in Brussels
while others have spotted her in the north of the country."
The new clues bring the total number of "Madeleine
sightings" in Belgium to 135.
Miss Pellens said every one was being thoroughly
investigated by detectives from the country's Missing Persons Unit.
"Many people have followed the Madeleine case and
everyone is desperate to help," she said.
"In some cases the girl who is spotted is speaking
Flemish but in other instances the girl seen is speaking English.
"The information in each case is being checked.
"We are urging the woman seen in the CCTV images to
come forward and tell us who the girl is."
