Children in Vancouver and around the world released balloons on Friday for Madeleine McCann, the British girl kidnapped in Portugal fifty days ago.
"She's still out there and she needs to come home," Madeleine's aunt, Norah Paul, told CTV News in Vancouver.
The four-year-old girl disappeared on May 3 from a room at the Mark Warner Ocean Club resort in Praia da Luz, while her parents, Kate and Gerry McCann, ate dinner at a nearby restaurant.
Paul, who is Gerry's brother, said the couple had visited Madeleine and her two-year-old twin siblings every 30 minutes, before she went missing.
"And then our Kate went up and Madeleine wasn't there," she said. "The windows were flying open and the curtains, and she knew that wasn't right. Then the panic went up and that was it."
Fifty yellow balloons were sent into the sky over Vancouver's Jericho Beach to keep the girl's memory alive, and to continue focus on her search.
"Please go somewhere. Find her. Do it," Paul wished as she watched the balloons drift away.
There were 300 other similar events expected to take place. In Glasgow, school children released balloons with a help-line number attached.
And in Madrid, people gathered to pray for Madeleine and remember all missing children.
Paul flew to Portugal shortly after Madeleine disappeared, to support the McCann family. But seven weeks later, investigators say they have few leads on where the little girl could be.
Her parents and supporters have created a $3 million reward to help find her, while celebrities like David Beckham have recorded video messages pleading with her abductor to let her go.
Kate and Gerry McCann, devout Catholics, have also visited with the pope.
"She gave him a picture of Madeleine, and he took it and stroked it and blessed it," said Paul. "It was quite wonderful."
With a report by CTV's St. John Alexander in Vancouver
