Madeleine McCann's parents are still bracing for a 'breakthrough' 16 years after their daughter's disappearance.

Kate and Gerry McCann have marked another anniversary since their little girl vanished on holiday sparking a global search.

The family had been in Portugal when Madeleine was aged three before she disappeared from a holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, on May 3 2007.

Now the couple have said Madeleine is “still very much missed”

Their statement said: “Today marks the 16th anniversary of Madeleine’s abduction. Still missing… still very much missed.

“It is hard to find the words to convey how we feel.

“The police investigation continues, and we await a breakthrough. Thank you to everyone for your support – it really helps.”

The couple also shared a poem named The Contradiction, written by Clare Pollard, which they said resonates strongly as they mark the anniversary.

It reads: “Today marks the 16th anniversary of Madeleine’s abduction.

“Still missing…….still very much missed.

“It is hard to find the words to convey how we feel.

“The poem below, by Clare Pollard, resonates strongly with us: “The Contradiction “The absence contradicts itself: the missing conjures what we miss.

“You are not here, I’m not myself, but still I talk to you like this.

“You’re in the crowd, the news, the glimpse -I make you there when you’re not there.

“I trace your steps, I map your face,I say your name, see you in air.

“You’re all I know and so unknown.

“I cannot hold you, yet I do: please let me hold you in my head and where you are now, hold me too.

“How can you be so near and far?

“You are not here. But here you are.”

The McCanns’ statement comes two weeks after a German court said it had decided not to hear a sex offences case against a man who is a suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine.

Prosecutors in the northern city of Braunschweig in October charged Christian Brueckner in several separate cases involving sexual offences allegedly committed in Portugal between 2000 and 2017.

The court decided not to hear the case because the region where it is located is not the last place where Bruckner lived in Germany.

Brueckner, who has reportedly denied any involvement in Madeleine’s disappearance, was identified as a murder suspect in the McCann case by Portuguese officials in June 2020.