Missing schoolboy case linked to Madeleine
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PORTUGUESE police are hunting a schoolboy whose disappearance has been linked to Madeleine McCann's.
Officers involved in the search for Madeleine have asked the public to help find Spaniard Yeremi Vargas after a boy matching his description was spotted in northern Portugal.
Yeremi (8) vanished as he played outside his home on the Canary island of Gran Canaria in March 2007. Mum Ithaisa Suarez has said she believes the same child traffickers may have targeted both children.
The McCanns have already printed hundreds of posters with pictures of Madeleine and Yeremi on them and sent them to Spain in a bid to solve both mysteries.
Now the Policia Judiciaria, the police force hunting for Madeleine (4), has put Yeremi's picture up on its missing persons' website alongside the photo of Gerry and Kate's daughter.
The move comes after Spanish police received information about a sighting of a boy thought to be Yeremi near Porto in northern Portugal in September last year.
Portuguese police have declined to reveal detailed information about the sighting.
Yeremi's mum told last month how Spanish police contacted her to say they had been in contact with Portuguese police investigating Madeleine.
Speaking from her home in Vecindario, 20 miles south of Gran Canaria's capital Las Palmas, she said: "They are working on the theory that people involved in child trafficking are behind these cases.
"When we heard about Madeleine, we started crying.
"Her parents have been going through hell, not only losing a daughter but being accused. You would feel like dying."
Yeremi vanished on March 10 last year as he played on wasteground behind his home.
Police suspected a link to Yeremi after the arrest of a local crematorium worker for kidnapping a 10-year-old girl near Las Palmas -- but have now discounted it.
- Gerard Couzens
