(ANSA) - Vatican City, September 18 - An Italian priest working in Niger has been kidnapped in Niger, probably by Islamist extremists, a fellow clergyman told the Fides agency on Tuesday. "On the night between Monday 17 and Tuesday 18 September, Father Pierluigi Maccalli of the Society of African Missions (SMA) was kidnapped by suspected jihadists active in the area," Father Mauro Armanino, a missionary in Niamey, Niger, told Fides.

"The area has been in a state of emergency for several months die to the presence of terrorists from Mali and Burkina Faso".

Maccalli, who was originally from the diocesis of the northern Italian town of Crema and had previous worked as a missionary in Ivory Coast, was in the parish of Bomoanga, in the Niamey diocesis.

