Spain police find body of US hiker near Camino de Santiago trail Published duration 12 September 2015

image copyright AFP/Getty Images image caption More than 200,000 people reached the end of the Camino de Santiago in 2013

Police in Spain say they have found the body of an American woman who went missing on the Camino de Santiago pilgrim trail.

Denise Pikka Thiem disappeared while walking along the route in northern Spain in April.

A police search resumed in Leon province on Thursday, and a body was found a day later.

Police told Reuters that a 39-year-old Spanish man, who lives near where the body was discovered, has been arrested.

Ms Thiem, who was 40 when she disappeared and would have turned 41 in August, last sent a message to a friend on 4 April.

She said she was near the town of Astorga, some 250km (155 miles) from the end of the trail in Santiago de Compostela.

Earlier this week, Spain's Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy wrote to her parents in Phoenix, Arizona, saying he "understands the pain of a family that does not know where their daughter is".

The route is very popular with pilgrims, with at least 215,880 reaching Santiago, city officials say (in Spanish).