Ex-supermodel Waris Dirie in hospital - lawyer

VIENNA (Reuters) - Former supermodel Waris Dirie, who reappeared in Brussels on Friday after a mystery disappearance, was admitted to hospital on Monday with an arm injury, her lawyer was quoted as saying.

Austrian media said she came home to Vienna at the weekend and news agency APA quoted her manager and lawyer as saying she had been abducted and held for two days by a taxi driver who attempted to rape her.

She was now unable to lift her left arm and had abrasions to her legs, the agency quoted lawyer Gerald Ganzger as saying on Monday. "She is in a bad way," Ganzger said. He expected Dirie to stay in hospital for two or three days.

Dirie, an Austrian citizen of Somali origin, told reporters on Friday her disappearance was "a little misunderstanding".

Police in Brussels on Friday said Dirie had got lost between 3 and 4 a.m. on Wednesday after getting into a taxi.

The internationally renowned beauty, whose face has graced countless magazines, turned her back on a lucrative career to campaign against the centuries-old practice of female genital mutilation, which she herself had undergone.

Dirie was made a United Nations population fund special ambassador for the elimination of female genital mutilation in 1997.