Madeleine's parents to make pilgrimage to Fatima shrine to pray for a miracle

The parents of Madeleine McCann are making a pilgrimage to one of Europe's holiest shrines today in the hope that she will be found safe and well.

Kate and Gerry McCann are expected to say prayers and light a candle for their four-year-old daughter at Fátima in central Portugal.

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They will then resume the search for her in the town she disappeared from.

Nearly three weeks after Madeleine vanished from the Algarve resort of Praia da Luz, there are still no clues as to what happened, where she might be or even whether she is still alive.

A reported sighting of a little blonde girl in Morocco has led to no breakthroughs.

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Her parents are clinging to the hope they and their two-year-old twins will be reunited with Madeleine and be allowed to go home - as Mr McCann put it yesterday - as a family of five.

Their poignant pilgrimage was announced after he returned to Portugal following a flying visit to Rothley in Leicestershire, where the family live.

There, he stopped at the village war memorial which wellwishers have decked in thousands of yellow ribbons, cards, flowers and cuddly toys.

On his return to Portugal he said: "It was extremely difficult to leave here without Kate and when I went to Rothley I knew we should have been coming home as a family of five - there's no doubt about that."

He also appealed for the police's only suspect in the case, Robert Murat, to be treated fairly.

Mr Murat has reportedly collapsed twice through stress since he was identified by police as the main suspect on Monday of last week.

Publicist Max Clifford made clear last night that he is advising Mr Murat's mother and aunt in handling press inquiries but will not personally represent Robert Murat unless he is cleared to do so by Portuguese police.

Mr McCann said yesterday that he and his wife were "nowhere near ready" to leave Portugal and vowed to "travel wherever is necessary" in their quest to get their daughter back.

Fatima - a four-hour drive north of Praia da Luz - is the site where the Virgin Mary is said to have appeared to three peasant children in 1917.

Mr McCann said: "Both of us have taken a great deal of strength from our faith. We want to visit the shrine of Fatima to pray for Madeleine's return to us."

He is said by friends to have found renewed faith in recent days. He and his wife are both Roman Catholics.