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A couple who have been missing for 48 days made a last-minute call for help just moments before they disappeared, it has been revealed.

Fears are growing that Willie Maughan and his girlfriend Ana Varslavane may have been abducted and murdered by a notorious Traveller gang who shot dead one of their criminal rivals in broad daylight on a Dublin street last year.

The couple were last seen alive on April 14 in Gormanstown, Co Meath.

And it's been revealed that Latvian Ana rang her 34-year-old partner's mother at 2.57pm that afternoon.

One of Helen Maughan's sons answered the call and said that he could hear Ana crying "Help, help, help" and the sound of choking, the Irish Independent reports.

It is reported that other voices could be heard in the background before the phone went dead.

And when William's family members arrived at the place where they were due to pick up the couple, there was no sign of their son or his girlfriend.

Mr Maughan's distraught parents made an emotional appeal on RTE's Crimecall last week.

Willie was due to meet his mother at around 3pm on April 14 and she raised the alarm when he didn’t show up.

The couple had been living in a mobile home in Gormanston and were planning to move in with Willie’s family in Tallaght, South Dublin, the day he went missing.

But they haven’t been seen or heard from since, they haven’t used their phones or bank cards and Ana’s passport is with gardai in Meath.

Pleading for information last month, Willie’s devastated mother Helen said: "I don’t want to accept that anything bad has happened and I just want them back.

(Image: Garda Press Office)

"Please, if anyone has any information, please come forward, we are all heartbroken.

Dad Joe added: “My son knew something that he should not have known and that is why they have been taken away."

While insisting that his son is "not a criminal", he said he suspects his disappearance is linked to knowledge of a gangland murder.