PARENTS of missing children are haunted at Christmas by the excruciating hole their child's disappearance leaves behind in their lives.
As families reunite to celebrate the holiday, the festive time serves as a fresh reminder of the devastating pain and unanswered questions.
Every year hundreds of thousands of children vanish across the world – and sadly many of them never come home.
Ninety per cent of children who go missing are found within 48 hours, and the vast majority return home unharmed.
But for some parents the search is never-ending and the grief bestowed on the families is never far from their minds.
Here's seven unforgettable missing children cases that still haven't been solved years – or even decades – after their disappearances:
Cherrie Mahan, aged 8
Cherrie Mahan got off her school bus on February 22, 1985, and hasn't been seen since.
Her mum Janice and her husband Leroy were at their home waiting for Cherrie to get home so they could take her to play with friends.
The bus driver says he saw the eight-year-old get off, but what happened next remains a mystery.
Not a day goes by that Janice doesn't think of her daughter.
Thirty-six years since her disappearance, Janice told KDKA she's never stopped wondering of the possibilities.
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“It’s a torment, I’ve been tormented since the day she was taken," she said.
"Is she alive, is she not alive, is she okay, is she not okay, is she with somebody are they taking care of her, are they not taking care of her?
“Does she miss me, does she want me, does she know me? These things run in my head every single day of my life.”
The National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children, which opened in 1984, featured Cherrie as its first child listed on their mass-mailed "Have You Seen Me?" search cards.
After Cherrie's disappearance, Janice turned to using drugs to numb the pain.
Eventually she was able to accept what happened by choosing to forgive whoever was involved.
She said: "That’s what gave me peace in my life. To forgive somebody that I didn’t know because I was killing myself."
William Tyrell, aged 3
William Tyrell vanished in broad daylight from his foster grandparents' New South Wales garden in 2014 when he was just three years old.
The picture of the adorable little boy with his wide eyes sitting in his Spiderman outfit has become a point of reference to people all around the world.
The toddler was in the care of foster parents and had been on a visit to the coastal town of Kendall, New South Wales, on the day he vanished.
His parents had gone inside to make a cup of tea while William and his sister played hide and seek outside.
When they returned five minutes later, William had gone.
His disappearance has become Australia's most high-profile missing child case.
The same grave fears were held for Cleo Smith who vanished from a campsite in Western Australia until she was miraculously found alive after 18 days following a sudden tipoff.
Shane Walker, aged 1
Shane Walker and his mum Rosa went to play at the Martin Luther King Jr. Towers playground in New York – but he never came home.
The one-year-old vanished without a trace from the park while his mum sat on a nearby bench on August 10, 1989.
She last saw him when two kids, aged around 10 and 5, came up and asked if they could play with her son.
Rosa said yes – and the tot was never seen again.
His vanishing mirrored the disappearance of two-year-old Christopher Dansby who vanished from the very same playground that May.
Neither of them have ever been found, and cops do not know if the cases are connected.
Both of their stories featured in Netflix documentary Unsolved Mysteries as their vanishings remain prominent cold cases in New York.
Cops speculated at the time that the children may have been snatched by someone who wanted to steal a baby to raise as their own.
Madeleine McCann, aged 3
The most famous missing persons case in the world, Madeleine McCann's vanishing is still unsolved almost 15 years on.
Maddie went missing while on holiday with her parents and siblings in Praia da Luz, Portugal, on May 3, 2007.
Her mum Kate discovered she was gone when she went to check on the kids around 10pm as the parents dined with friends at a nearby tapas bar.
It is widely believed the Brit tot was snatched from the family's holiday apartment by a stranger.
But it remains a mystery as to whether it was a planned abduction, a burglary gone wrong, or something else.
Portuguese, British and German police have never been able to charge anyone over Maddie's disappearance.
Kate and her husband Gerry have never given up hope that they may one day find Maddie.
But prosecutors in an ongoing probe in Germany insist that Madeleine is dead and that they are close to solving the case.
However, since the bombshell announcement in June 2020 about new prime suspect Christian B – public progress has been slow.
Amber-Lee Cruickshank, aged 2
Amber-Lee Cruickshank was just two years old when she disappeared on October 17, 1992, from a property in Kingston, on the shores of Lake Wakatipu, New Zealand.
Her mother, stepfather and baby brother were travelling with Amber-Lee to start a new life in the West Coast, stopping at the house for a night to catch up with friends.
Amber-Lee vanished while a number of people were socialising inside the home.
Police believe she might be a victim of foul play.
She is one of a handful unsolved missing cases in Aotearoa with little clues as to what could have happened or her whereabouts.
Twenty-nine years later, police have never given up their search for answers.
The toddlers mother, Nicky Cruickshank, remains dumbfounded that her little girl just vanished.
In August this year, she told Stuff: "I just can’t understand how a little girl can disappear off the face of the earth.
“The pain and anguish we all feel is unbearable, yet we keep on keeping on and living in hope that one day a miracle will happen, and we will have the answers we desperately seek.
This year police offered an $100,000 (NZD) (£51,000) reward for evidence that led to the identity and conviction of anyone responsible for her disappearance.
The tip line garnered 75 phone calls but nothing that moved investigators any closer to Amber-Lee.
The Beaumont children, aged 4, 7, 9
On January 26, 1966, Australia was forever changed with the abduction of Jane, Arnna, and Grant Beaumont.
The case to find the person responsible for taking the girls led to one of the largest police investigations in Australian criminal history.
Aged nine, seven and four, the three girls were lured from Glenelg Beach in Adeliade.
The three siblings have never been found, and the identity of the man who was spotted with the children that day by numerous onlookers remains a mystery.
Uncertainty about what happened to them makes their disappearance one of Australia's most infamous cold cases.
In January 2018, the South Australia Premier Jay Weatherill said SA Police had "never given up on the case" and that they "have a policy that no murder investigation ends up in a closed file".
A $1million AUD (£500,000) reward for information relating to the children's disappearance is still maintained by the State Government.
Many believe the shocking nature of the siblings' case had a huge impact on Australian society with some saying the taking of the Beaumont girls changed the liberty of which some parents supervised their children.
Inga Gehricke
Inga Gehricke, five, has been known as the “German Madeleine” since she suddenly disappeared without trace in Germany five years ago.
She went missing on May 2, 2015, from a forest in Schönebeck, Saxony-Anhalt, during a barbecue.
At the time of her disappearance, the girl was visiting the Wilhelmshof district of Stendal.
She went to collect wood for a campfire with other children in the forest.
But, Inga did not return, and there’s been no sign of her ever since.
Like Madeleine’s case, there has been no trace of missing Inga.
A search with tracking dogs and police helicopters proved unsuccessful.
Cops were left none the wiser despite more than 1,000 helpers, including firefighters and police officers, searching for her.
They turned up no clues as to her whereabouts.
Police said at the time that they suspected the girl was kidnapped.
Head of the investigation, Reimar Klockziem, told reporters in Germany that her disappearance was “inexplicable and unbelievable”.
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