April Jones: hundreds search for five-year-old girl feared abducted

A major search is under way for a missing five-year-old girl who was feared abducted while out playing near her home. Hundreds of local residents from Machynlleth in mid-Wales have been helping police hunt for April Jones, who it is claimed was last seen getting into a light coloured van yesterday evening before it drove off. Police are treating the disappearance of a five-year-old girl in Powys as a suspected abduction. April Jones was playing with friends near her home in Machynlleth but was seen getting into a grey or light coloured van at 19:00 BST on Monday. Around 200 people helped in a search of streets, farmland and woodland through the night. April was last seen wearing a purple knee-length coat with a fur hood, white school polo top and black trousers. The Ysgol Gynradd Machynlleth pupil had been playing on her bicycle with friends near her home on the Bryn-y-Gog estate. A frantic search is underway after a five-year-old girl playing on her bicycle with a friend near her home was last night abducted by a stranger. Police and hundreds of residents searched through the night for April Jones, who was taken into a van in the town of Machynlleth in Wales. Officers were today comforting her distressed parents Coral, 40, and Paul, 43, who were said to be ‘besides themselves with worry’. Detectives said they were becoming 'increasingly concerned' for the girl, who disappeared in the grey or light-coloured vehicle at around 7pm.