Priest abducted

Suspected Islamic extremists have abducted a German priest in Mali’s capital, colleagues said yesterday, marking the first kidnapping of a Westerner in Bamako in more than a decade. The Rev Hans-joachim Lohre was preparing to go celebrate Mass in another part of the city on Monday when he was kidnapped, according to Dia Monique Pare, a colleague at the Institute of Islamicchristian Training. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the kidnapping of the German priest, who has been in Mali for more than 30 years and teaches at the Institute of Islamic-christian Training. However, suspicion immediately fell on Islamic extremists, who have a history of abducting foreigners and holding them for ransom.