Firemen said they found a nine-year-old autistic Pakistani girl alive near the central Italian city of Arezzo on Thursday, the day after she disappeared.
The schoolgirl was discovered on a river bank under a bridge in the town of Ponte alla Nave after she vanished on Wednesday afternoon, the firemen said.
The third-grader was reported to be "conscious" when she was found after a major search operation that had continued through the night.
The child's mother called police after she vanished from agricultural land near the village of Capolona where the family lives.
The girl went missing in the same area in September last year and wandered for several hours in nearby countryside before she was found.
