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PRAIA DA LUZ, Portugal: The parents of Madeleine McCann will mark on Saturday the 100th day since the young British girl disappeared from a hotel room in southern Portugal by taking part in a special service of prayers for missing children.

The mass will be held at a beachside church at Praia da Luz in Portugal's Algarve region where Gerry and Kate have regularly prayed since their daughter vanished from a nearby resort hotel on May 3, just before her fourth birthday.

"It doesn't get any easier. The 50th day seemed like such a long time when we marked that. We have doubled that now," Kate said when asked about the milestone date during an interview with the BBC broadcast on Friday.

"It is the 100th day but it is just another day without Madeleine for us and for Madeleine, another of being separated from her family," she added.

The couple, devout Roman Catholics, met with Pope Benedict XVI at the Vatican in May during a trip they made around Europe to publicise their search for their daughter, who they believe was kidnapped.

Roman Catholic masses across Britain over the weekend will include prayers for Madeleine while thousands of people will see a new video appealing for help in finding the missing girl to be screened at the English Premiership football games as the new season gets underway.

A message of support from England rugby union player Jonny Wilkinson will be played at England's international match against France, while jockey Frankie Dettori will wear a T-shirt with her image at the Ascot races.

A lone piper meanwhile is scheduled to play a specially commissioned tune for Madeleine at the opening of the International Pipe band competition in Glasgow in Scotland where Gerry is from.

Kate McCann's parents and friends of the family will distribute posters and ballons in her home city of Liverpool.

The events are the latest in the energetic campaign mounted by the McCanns to find their daughter that has raised millions in donations and reward money and involved celebrities like English football star David Beckham.

In interviews with British and Portuguese television stations broadcast on Friday, Gerry and Kate said they still believed their daughter was alive since they knew of no concrete evidence to suggest she had been hurt or killed.

Earlier this week Portuguese media reported that British sniffer dogs found previously undetected traces of blood in the hotel room from which Madeleine disappeared while her parents dined with friends at the resort's restaurant.

The girl had been left alone with her twin two-year-old siblings.

The blood is reportedly being tested at a lab in Britain to see if it is Madeleine's.

Portugal's police chief Alipio Ribeiro on Friday said the case was "far from being solved" despite new clues having emerged.

"There are new clues in the investigation but we still don't know where they will take us," he told national news agency Lusa.

Last weekend police once again searched the home of the only named suspected in the case, 33-year-old British national Robert Murat, but did not say if they found any evidence against him.

The house, which Murat shares with his mother, is located just 150 metres (yards) from the resort hotel where the McCann family were staying.

There have been several reported sightings of Madeleine around the world, from Argentina to Morocco, but they have all either been discounted or deemed to be inconclusive.

Kate told Britain's Sky News on Friday that the alleged sightings were still "reassuring" because it showed people were still looking for Madeleine.


- AFP/so