Posted on 09/26/2007 3:15:53 PM PDT by blam
Morocco photo is not Madeleine McCann
By Caroline Gammell in Praia da Luz and Richards Edwards in Zinat, northern Morocco
Last Updated: 10:50pm BST 26/09/2007
Kate and Gerry McCann are facing further heartbreak after the mystery girl caught in a photograph in Morocco turned out not be Madeleine, but a local farmer's daughter.
The grainy image of a fair-haired girl being carried on the back of a woman bore a startling resemblance to the four-year-old, who went missing in the Portuguese resort of Praia da Luz on May 3.
Bushra, the five-year-old Moroccan girl who was mistaken for Madeleine McCann
But the girl in the photo has been named as five-year-old Bushra Binhisa and the woman identified as her mother Hafida.
News that it was not Madeleine came as a severe blow to Kate and Gerry McCann who remain convinced their daughter was abducted and have clung onto the hope she might still be alive.
Their spokesman Clarence Mitchell said they "very disappointed" by the development but he warned that the sighting had not been officially discounted.
"Clearly if it's not her it's very disappointing, it is obviously a terrible blow," he said.
"But as I’ve said, I urged caution. We have been here before.
"It’s obviously an emotional rollercoaster."
The striking image was taken by Spanish tourist Clara Torres on August 31 while on holiday in Morocco.
Bushra's parents offered their sympathy to the McCanns but said the girl definitely belonged to them.
Speaking through an interpreter, Hamid Binhisa, an olive farmer, said: "Bushra is my little girl. She is not Madeleine.
"I do feel sorry for her parents, I hope they find Madeleine. But Bushra is definitely my daughter."
Her mother Hafida said she was surprised the photograph had sparked such a major search involving Interpol.
"Even in this remote backwater people have heard of Madeleine McCann," she said.
Family friend Mustafa Hadid added: "We are all shocked that people could think Bushra was Madeleine.
"She does have a resemblance but blonde and red-haired children are not that rare in this part of Morocco.
"The people are Berbers and they come from a different stock than people in the south of the country.
"Bushra’s father is just a farmer so he would not have read the newspapers."
The other girl seen in the picture was named as Bushra's older sister Mariam, alongside her father and aunts.
The family was spotted in the small town of Zinat, on the main road heading towards Tetuan, in the main road to Chaouen.
Scenes of donkey carts, shepherds and nomads wandering the dusty and rubbish-strewn streets are typical.
For years the main nearby city of Tetouan has had a bad reputation - as a city of smugglers, criminals and lately as a hotbed for radical Islamism.
Morocco has regularly featured in the hunt for Madeleine with three other reported sightings since May.
Spaniard Isabel Gonzalez, 60, said she was certain she saw Madeleine being dragged along a street by a Muslim woman in the remote northern town of Zaio at the end of May.
Norwegian Mari Olli and a man from Yorkshire both claimed to see a girl very similar to Madeleine in Marrakesh on May 9 - six days after she disappeared.
Portuguese police played down the most recent sighting right from the start, with one source explaining that girl’s head was a different shape to Madeleine's.
Detectives are still said to be working on the theory that Mrs McCann may have accidentally killed her daughter and relied on her husband to help cover it up.
The McCanns have dismissed the theory as ludicrous.
Mr and Mrs McCann remain official suspects and it is understood police still want to re-interview the friends who dined with the McCanns on the night Madeleine went missing.
Detectives are under intense pressure to find a body or risk jeopardising their case.
Further searches around the Praia da Luz area are expected.
It has been claimed that Mr McCann had not told detectives that he believed his daughter’s abductor was hiding in the apartment when he checked on the children.
But a source close to the family said he had told them everything he knew: “It is just an assumption on his part. “He believes the abductor must have been in the apartment for it to have happened so quickly.”
Just saw that. Darn it, I was hoping it was her. Those “women” still looked like men and had fake boobs. (guess they were just homely women)
Thanks. Saved.
just a hunch but I think George Lucas named “Tatooine” (I visited there when I was a kid) after Tetouan - after all, the first Star Wars movie was filmed not that far away...
The Tauregs are interesting you should post something on them.
berbers = Berbers
The child in that picture is in no way 5 years old! That’s a 2 or 3 yr old, but no way 5!
Ping. Oh well.
I hope she’s alive and is found soon.
Thanks for the ping though.
There are lighthaired children in many parts of the world. But tourists probably don't expect to see lighthaired children in certain places, so now every one of them will be suspected as Madeleine.
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