text: Image copyright AFP Image caption Police have appealed for any witnesses to come forward 
   
   Concern is growing over the fate of a nine-year-old girl who vanished while attending a wedding in eastern France. 
   
   The girl, Maëlys De Araujo, was last seen in a children's room at about 03:00 on Sunday (01:00 GMT). 
   
   Extensive searches of the area around the wedding hall using a helicopter and police dogs have thus far failed to find a trace of the girl. 
   
   A kidnapping investigation has opened and police have issued an appeal for witnesses. 
   
   Police have already interviewed most of the 180 attendees at the wedding, which took place in a hall in Pont-de-Beauvoisin, Isère. 
   
   But the local prosecutor says they are also trying to speak to an additional 70 people who were attending two other social events at a community hall and bar nearby. 
   
   Maëlys was at the wedding along with her mother - cousin of the bride - father, and older sister. They are said to live in the nearby department of Jura. 
   
   A guest, Grégoire, told Le Parisien news site what had happened when guests realised the girl was missing. 
   
   Image copyright AFP Image caption The Guiers river, a short distance from the wedding venue, was searched by police divers for a second time on Tuesday 
   
   Image copyright AFP Image caption There are so far few clues as to why and how Maëlys disappeared from the hall where the wedding was held 
   
   "The DJ for the evening announced on the microphone that a child had disappeared. Suddenly, everyone started searching, in the main hall and outside. 
   
   "It was anguish. To see the disappearance of a nine-year-old, that's not nothing. We initially thought she must be asleep in a corner after a game of hide-and-seek. After an hour, as we'd found nothing, the police were alerted." 
   
   Grégoire said he believed that a kidnapping had taken place. Reports also say police dogs failed to find any scent of the girl beyond the car park of the wedding hall, suggesting the girl did not run away. 
   
   Police, firefighters and volunteer firefighters have searched dense vegetation around the wedding hall, the nearby river Guiers and even sewers. The search continued on Tuesday and divers could be seen once again searching the river, about 500m (one-third of a mile) away. 
   
   The local prosecutor, Dietlind Baudoin, said she did not want to make hasty assumptions about what had happened, but a criminal explanation could not be ruled out. 
   
   Police have appealed for witnesses to come forward to help find Maëlys, who they say is 130cm tall (4'3"), weighs 28kg (4st 6lb), has dark skin, brown eyes and hair, and was wearing a white sleeveless dress. ||||| A kidnapping investigation has been opened into the disappearance of the girl, Maëlys De Araujo, who has not been seen since the early hours of Sunday morning. 
   
   Police have carried out searches of the area using a helicopter, divers, cavers, and police dogs, and have also interviewed all 180 of the wedding guests. 
   
   The dogs reportedly lost the girl's scent in the car park, leading police to the hypothesis of abduction, though prosecutors said they had not excluded any possible explanations for the girl's disappearance, "accidental or criminal". 
   
   "Obviously, we are exploring all leads," local prosecutor Dietlind Baudoin told a news conference more than 48 hours after de Araujo disappeared. 
   
   The wedding took place at a hall in Le Pont-de-Beauvoisin, Isère in southeastern France, which the child attended with her parents, older sister, and relatives. 
   
   Police have searched the hall's caretaker's house and car, according to a report in France Bleu, but neither that man nor anyone else has yet been placed in custody. 
   
   
   
   The hall used for the wedding. Photo: AFP 
   
   Now, police are checking the criminal records of the girl's relatives and other attendees at the wedding, as well as reviewing photos and videos taken at the party. Divers were also searching the nearby Guiers river on Tuesday. 
   
   "Given the time that has elapsed since the disappearance of the young Maelys and given the resources that have sadly been deployed in vain to find her, the criminal possibility can no longer be ruled out," Baudoin said.\ 
   
   A source close to the investigation said "each passing hour" makes kidnapping more likely than the possibility that Maelys was involved in an accident or ran away. 
   
   
   
   "It's likely she got into a car," the source told AFP. 
   
   They have also appealed for any witnesses to get in touch, and have issued the following description of Maëlys: "She is nine years old; she measures 1.3 metres and weighs 28 kilos; she has tanned skin, dark eyes, and chestnut hair." ||||| This article is over 1 year old 
   
   Maëlys de Araujo not seen since about 3am on Sunday when she was at party with parents in town of Pont-de-Beauvoisin in the Alps 
   
   Divers, police dogs and a helicopter have taken part in a massive search for a missing nine-year-old girl in the French Alps after she vanished during a family wedding at the weekend. 
   
   
   
   “Obviously we are exploring all leads,” the local prosecutor, Dietlind Baudoin, told a news conference more than 48 hours after the disappearance of the girl, Maëlys de Araujo. 
   
   The girl has not been seen since about 3am local time on Sunday when she was at the wedding with her parents and other family members in the town of Pont-de-Beauvoisin in the French Alps near the town of Chambéry. 
   
   The party ended with guests searching for Maëlys after the DJ announced that she had disappeared, local reports said. 
   
   The regional police chief, Yves Marzin, said three sniffer dogs had all lost the scent from Maëlys’s cuddly toy at “the same spot” in the car park outside the venue. 
   
   “One of the possible theories is that little Maëlys left in a car, one way or another,” Marzin said. 
   
   A source close to the investigation said “each passing hour” made kidnapping more likely than the possibility that Maëlys was involved in an accident or ran away. 
   
   Facebook Twitter Pinterest French gendarmes stand over the Guiers river as they search for evidence following the disappearance of Maëlys. Photograph: Philippe Desmazes/AFP/Getty Images 
   
   Posters of the brown-haired girl with brown eyes have gone up throughout the town and surrounding area, and an investigation has been opened into a possible kidnapping. 
   
   Around 100 police, including divers, cavers and dog handlers, have joined in the search. Divers could be seen searching for her in the nearby Guiers river on Tuesday. 
   
   The surrounding area is heavily wooded with “very dense vegetation”, the prosecutor’s office said in a statement. 
   
   
   
   “Given the time that has elapsed since the disappearance of the young Maëlys and given the resources that have been sadly deployed in vain to find her, the criminal possibility can no longer be ruled out,” Baudoin said at the courthouse in nearby Bourgoin-Jallieu. 
   
   But she warned against “making hasty conclusions”. 
   
   Wedding guests searched for the girl for about an hour before alerting the police, Baudoin said. 
   
   Police are questioning the 180 people who attended the wedding as well as people at two other parties held in the town on Saturday night. 
   
   So far, 140 people out of a total of 250 have been questioned, according to Didier Plunian, who heads the region’s search and rescue unit. 
   
   The other parties took place in a parish hall and a bar, both near the wedding venue, Baudoin said. 
   
   The child’s mother and other relatives were receiving psychological counselling, the RTL broadcaster reported.
target: – Police have opened a kidnapping investigation as searches continue for a 9-year-old girl who vanished from a family wedding in the French Alps Sunday. The Local reports that authorities have scoured the area, using helicopters, police dogs, divers, and cavers around France’s southeastern Isère region to track down any trace of Maelys De Araujo. After canines lost the girl’s scent in the venue’s parking lot, police believe kidnapping is a possibility, though they are not ruling out other explanations, “accidental or criminal,” for her disappearance. "Given the time that has elapsed since the disappearance of the young Maelys and given the resources that have sadly been deployed in vain to find her, the criminal possibility can no longer be ruled out," local prosecutor Dietlind Baudoin said during a news conference. Maelys, who attended the wedding with her parents, older sister, and other relatives, was last seen in what the BBC describes as "a children’s room" around 3am local time Sunday morning. "The DJ for the evening announced on the microphone that a child had disappeared,” a wedding guest told Le Parisien. “Suddenly, everyone started searching, in the main hall and outside.” He added, “We initially thought she must be asleep in a corner after a game of hide-and-seek.” Police were contacted an hour later when the search yielded no results, the Guardian reports. All of the 180 wedding guests were interviewed by police, who are now reviewing photos and videos from the celebration and conducting 70 additional interviews of people who attended outside social events at a local bar and community hall around the same time.