Madeleine McCann: Reservoir search ends in Portugal

Sky News understands that the police

search

in an area of ​​Portugal near where Madeleine McCann disappeared 16 years ago has come to an end; the

search

had already been expanded from two days to three; Now European correspondent Cheval Robbins is on the hunt. and he can bring us the latest from Siobhan. Yes, the searches that you say seem to have ended to inform people that we have been here for the last two days and in this

reservoir

and the peninsula behind us, that is where we have been seeing the main ones. It is the center of the action that has been happening here, so we have seen, for example, sniffer dogs being brought in on cutting machines clearing wooded areas, drones going up, police officers digging and all of this was at the request of the German authorities who appointed to their main suspect in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann in 2007 as a convicted sex offender called Christian B it is now understood that they requested these searches which have been carried out as a joint effort by German, Portuguese authorities and with some UK officials the reason for which they requested them.

We understand it's because they received a credible tip from an informant. Christian B has always denied any involvement, but it is believed that he used to visit this location, so they returned here and over the course of this day we have seen a lot of the heavy machinery that was used in those searches come to light. We also saw on the way a headquarters that was set up with several blue tents that have now been taken down and we made a request to the German prosecutor to see what was happening and he told us that the fact that the search teams seem to be going out and That everything is packing up would suggest that the search is over, but it is important to stress that that does not mean that the investigation is over because what they have to do now is look at anything they may have found here, find out if it advances the investigation or if it is something to rule out and then continue investigating what happened to Madeleine McCann.

Now we hope to get some kind of confirmation that the search is officially over although from what we can see it clearly is and also maybe later in the future I will find out from those prosecutors if they have found anything credible to move this investigation forward and Siobhan, I know that you're in a remote

reservoir

in Portugal, but you know Um, such is the focus still on Madeleine McCann's 16 years, on what has been the level of interest about what's been happening there for the last three days, huge, it's been absolutely huge, as you say, this is a remote area, it's a place where the signal is difficult. winding roads and all the roads are completely full of vehicles, there have been people bringing satellite trucks, there have been teams from all over the world here and we went to Pride I luge which is where Madeleine McCann appeared from disappeared in 2007 and it is where people There's talk about that too, we talked to tourists who have been coming back to this area for decades, who were in the area at the time Madeleine McCann disappeared and they said everyone is talking about it, it's on the front pages of the Portuguese newspapers and During The tourists we spoke to certainly feel that this is a new opportunity to get answers because this search that has been going on is the first here in Portugal for almost a decade and there is a feeling that, hopefully, there will be answers for to the family at the time, but also to the people who live in this area, where the case has weighed on them for 16 years.