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Police in France are wrapping up the search for a missing toddler after scouring a remote village in the French Alps for five days. Two-year-old Emile was on holiday with his grandparents when he vanished while playing in a garden, sparking a frantic hunt that involved thermic camera drones, helicopters and sniffer dogs. Searches have so far yielded no clues to the whereabouts of the missing boy and police launched a last-ditch bid to find him on Thursday. Here’s a look at everything we know about the case so far. Where did Emile disappear? Emile, whose surname has not been reported, was playing in the garden of a property in Le Vernet - a small village of around 20 houses in the Alpes-de-Haute-Provence on Saturday when he went missing. His family was preparing to go out hiking for the day when they realised the child, who lives near Marseille, had disappeared.The boy’s grandparents had been packing the car when he vanished. Emile is described as 3ft tall, with brown eyes and blonde hair and was wearing a yellow T-shirt, white shorts with a green pattern and walking shoes when he vanished. Reports said he was seen by two people when he left the property but they “lost sight of him”. Police said on Wednesday that at least 10 people were present at the property where Emile was last seen amid a family reunion, with “several uncles and aunts of the child, of all ages, including some minors”, a police source said. How has the search unfolded Authorities in France issued an appeal for information about Emile on 9 July after the boy was reported missing by his grandparents at 5.15pm the previous day. The search operation covered the land and air around Le Vernet and involved hundreds of police officers, soldiers and volunteers, The manager of a local restaurant said staff had looked “everywhere” for the boy as local volunteers helped with the search. “We were preparing for the evening service, when we were told the child had gone missing,” the manager told La Provence. “We all went to see what we could do to help as quickly as possible. “We have looked in places where he could be, we have really looked everywhere for him.” At one point during the search, police helicopters played the voice of Emile’s mother through speakers in the hope that it could help bring him out. On Wednesday evening it was reported that a vehicle with blood on it had been found amid the ongoing search for missing French toddler Emile. In a statement to La Provence, local prosecutor Rémy Avon said analysis had revealed the sample “animal blood”. Emile has now been missing for a week, as investigators admitted they have “no clue” what happened to him. Mr Avon also said that he had taken the decision to call off the “physical” search for Emile on Thursday. Police had been looking at a final plot of land in an area of Vernet, with around 50 officers taking part. “The judicial investigation into the causes of the disappearance will continue,” Mr Avon added. “In particular by analysing the considerable mass of information and elements collected over the past four days.” Police are today combing a 1.8km-long road, that has previously been searched before, in the hope of finding new evidence in Emile’s disappearance. But police say they will be searching the stretch of road more “meticulously” this time. What have politicians said? The mayor of Le Vernet on Friday said the best hope for the missing toddler is that “he’s been kidnapped and is alive”. In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Francois Balique commented on police calling off the physical search for Emile after five days and possible explanation’s for his disappearance. “Our only hope now is that he’s been taken and is alive. It’s the last thing we can hope for and it’s already terrible. “We could consider that someone wanting to cause harm to a child passed by the area, that he saw this beautiful little boy and took him away. He couldn’t survive alone in the wild, that’s for sure.” Mr Balique said it is ”difficult to favour one hypothesis over another” but explained that “the probabilities and the rationality would lead us to believe that we are dealing with an accident”. He continued: “And since little Emile’s body has not been found, it means that he was not alone at the time. We can consider a car accident in which the driver would have panicked and concealed the body. That’s one hypothesis.” Local politician Sylvie Belmontes had earlier said the search reminded her of the case of Yannis Moré, who vanished from Ganagobie, Alpes-de-Haute-Provence in 1989 while playing with friends. “It reminds us of a lot of things. I sent a little message of support to the mayor of Vernet, François Balique”, Ganagobie mayor Sylvie Belmonte told La Provence, referencing the disappearance of 3-year-old Yannis Moré in May 1989. “I was town clerk and I took part in the search to try to find little Yannis”, he added. Mr Avon told a press conference earlier this week that police had “no clue” where the boy was. “His grandparents realised he was no longer there when they went to put him in the car.” What happens next Mr Avon said the previous searches did not yield any clues to solving the mystery of the boy’s disappearance and instead, investigators will be shifting their focus to evaluating evidence already gathered. “The investigation into the causes of his disappearance will continue, notably through analysis of the considerable amount of information and elements gathered over four days,” he added. 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The collapse of Afghanistan’s government at the hands of the Taliban forced thousands of the nation’s people to flee their homeland, including many of those who served as translators and other aides to US military forces. But in the more than a year and a half since, the United States has failed to offer immigration assistance to most Afghans who helped American forces, which would allow them to stay in the country on a more permanent basis. According to International Rescue Committee, the US admitted 76,000 Afghans as part of Operation Allies Welcome. And as the global war on terror has stretched on for more than two decades, Afghans have aided service members on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean – including the United States’ closest ally. In the United Kingdom, the government pledged to allow Afghans who assisted British forces to build a life in safety and security. Instead, many who have made the dangerous trip from Afghanistan to Britain have been told they face deportation. One pilot who served with distinction fled Afghanistan even as his wife and young family stayed behind, arriving in Britain in a small boat because there was no safe and legal route to escape the Taliban, since British and Nato forces left him and his squadron behind. Now he has been told by UK authorities that he faces being sent to Rwanda under a controversial immigration policy. “Everyone knew that one day the American and British armies would leave as they had supported us for a long time. But when the withdrawal came, our territorial leaders failed us,” the pilot, who is not named in order to protect his family, told The Independent earlier this year. The Independent is campaigning for the British government to give a home to those who fought with the UK against the Taliban. It has been backed by politicians of all parties, as well as religious leaders, senior military figures and celebrities including Sting and director Guy Ritchie. But the United Kingdom is not alone in its failure to fulfill the pledges made to those who assisted the war efforts. Despite broad bipartisan support in both houses of US Congress and from President Joe Biden, Congress has failed to live up to its commitments to Afghans despite supportive rhetoric. Most Afghans who came to the United States after the withdrawal of US military forces from the country, arrived on what is called humanitarian parole, wherein people who may be otherwise ineligible for admission into the United States are allowed to enter for humanitarian reasons. “And those folks have two years of parole, which is about to run out,” Shaun VanDiver, the founder of #AfghanEvac and a US Navy veteran, told The Independent. “The issue with the parolees is that for every other population, where there's been a big influx like this, Congress has passed Adjustment of Status.” Adjustment of Status would allow people who were given humanitarian parole to adjust their status to that of a permanent resident. In the months following the collapse of the Afghan government and more Afghans entering the United States, a bipartisan group led by Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota sponsored the Afghan Adjustment Act. “It's strongly supported by veterans it should be must pass,” Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, told The Independent. “But there are all kinds of time pressures, a lot of competing issues.” Those competing interests meant the bill was not included in must-pass legislation like last year’s omnibus spending bill, the National Defense Authorization Act, and an aid package to Ukraine, which means that many of the people given humanitarian parole risk losing their status by August, which marks two years since the Taliban took control in Afghanistan. Democratic Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York told The Independent that the United States has had a double standard when it comes to Afghanistan and other nations enduring conflict. “I feel like we saw even in the outbreak of Ukraine, the difference between how things were expedited depending on country of origin,” she said. “And I believe that translators and many folks ... we should be really filling up the visa allotments that we have, and we have not yet.” Mr VanDiver explained that the Trump administration weakened parts of the immigration system like Special Immigrant Visas and created massive backlogs by weakening the resettlement programmes. “The impact that Afghans are feeling right now can be attributed to Stephen Miller and Donald Trump, the way that they purposely deconstructed the system for welcoming vulnerable people into our country and cares for their inaction,” he said. The legislation would need to pass through the judiciary committees in the US House and Senate. Senator Chuck Grassley, who last year served as the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, opposed the legislation. Mr Grassley told The Independent that at the time he led the GOP on the committee, he was speaking for the concerns of other Republican senators. “I think it would be based on this issue of vetting,” he said. “I think that's very important. You know, when we have 98 people across the border that haven't been vetted and they're on the terrorist watch list, I think we have to be very careful.” Since then, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, one of the co-sponsors of the Afghan Adjustment Act, has stepped up to ranking member of the Senate Judiciary Committee. He said lawmakers may act on the Afghan Adjustment Act towards the end of the year when Congress must fund the government. “I think it’s important we keep our commitment to those who helped us in Afghanistan,” Mr Graham told The Independent, adding that he is not concerned about missing the August deadline. “I just want to try to rally the House and Senate around the concept that we need to do better, and that's very important,” he said. Since 2022, Republicans have taken control of the House of Representatives, making it much harder to pass the legislation in the era of hyper-polarised government. While Mr Graham is the top Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Representative Jim Jordan, a hardliner on immigration, now leads the House Judiciary Committee, making it even tougher for the bill to pass. “But that's okay,” Mr VanDiver said. “So long as we could get (House Majority Leader Steve) Scalise and (House Speaker Kevin) McCarthy to be supportive, then we could do it.” Until then, Mr VanDiver has helped launch an Afghanistan Community Ambassadors Program so any Afghan in the United States can sign up and get direct information about immigration. “It's meant to ensure that every Afghan here has access to the same information,” he said. “So it's not like you have to know somebody.” Read More Britain’s faith leaders condemn ‘heartless’ threat to send Afghan war hero to Rwanda Our government is blinded by an obsession that is morally repugnant Minister roasted over claim ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Afghans want asylum in UK Minister roasted over claim ‘hundreds of thousands’ of Afghans want asylum in UK Rail strikes could see injured veterans miss ‘vital’ reunion G7 urges China to press Russia to end war in Ukraine, respect Taiwan's status, fair trade rules