The father of missing Irish teenager Amy Fitzpatrick has appealed for any information that might lead to her return.
Christopher Fitzpatrick, who lives in Donaghmede, Dublin, is said to be "devastated" by Amy's disappearance in Spain's Costa del Sol where she lived with her mother, brother and stepfather.
It is now a week since Amy (15) went missing as she walked home at about 10pm on New Year's Day from a friend's house where she was babysitting in Calahonda near Mijas.
She disappeared while walking a dirt track and unlit path near her home.
Mr Fitzpatrick issued a statement through his sister and Amy's aunt Christine Kenny.
The statement urged Amy to contact either the police in Spain or the gardaí in Dublin, but also appealed to anybody who might be holding her to let her go.
"We just want to know that she is safe and well, but, if somebody has taken Amy, we want them to know that Amy is someone's daughter and someone's sister. For God's sake please let Amy go. It doesn't matter where you leave her, so let her go."
Mr Fitzpatrick also left a message on the English language ex-patriate site Totally Spanish, urging Amy to come home if she was unhappy in Spain.
"If you are out there and you can see this, or get to a phone, ring us. If you've run away because you don't want to be in Spain, we can arrange for you to stay with us if that's what you really want."
Last night Ms Kenny said that her brother had been in regular contact with Amy over the Christmas period.
"Her dad is very, very upset. We're all disturbed about everything that is going on. We can't get our heads around it," she said.
The hunt for the missing teenager will be stepped up tomorrow when civil guard officers and local police in Mijas, backed by specialist units drafted in from Seville and Madrid, are to organise a fresh search.
In a statement released yesterday evening, the Civil Guard asked for volunteers to join them at the local football ground in La Cala de Mijas at 9am to take part in the hunt, which will cover the area already searched on previous days but with a wider radius of approximately 6km.
Spanish police said yesterday that many calls had been received on the telephone hotlines set up at the weekend but little useful information had been learned.
Indeed, the investigation has been hampered by a small number of reported sightings and findings which have turned out to be hoaxes.
Rumours spread for much of yesterday that clothing belonging to her had been discovered a short distance from the dirt track.
However, the family's official spokesman, Franco Rey, says there was no truth in the reports.
He called on friends and acquaintances of Amy to refrain from appearing in the media with conjectures as to what might have happened to the girl in order not to deflect attention from the current lines of investigation.