The freighter hauling 850 tonnes of Japanese and German food aid was seized by unidentified pirates on Monday between Haradhere and Hobyo, about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northeast of Mogadishu, they said, adding that the demand for 500,000 dollars (415,000 euros) in ransom was received on Tuesday.

"They called us on the 28th and demanded a ransom of a half a million US dollars," said Karim Kudrathi of the Motaku Shipping Agency in the Kenyan port of Mombasa which owns the vessel.

"We have totally refused and are engaging our negotiators," he told AFP.

The WFP appealed for the immediate release of the ship, its 10-member crew and the food aid and urged "local authorities and community elders to intervene in this regard."

"It is against international humanitarian law to hinder the passage of humanitarian assistance and there is no justification for hijacking," the WFP said in a statement.

The Japanese- and German-donated rice on board was donated in response to a WFP appeal for assistance for some 28,000 Somalis affected by the December 26, 2004 tsunami that devastated countries around the Indian Ocean.

The ship, the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered MV Semlow, had been on its way from Mombasa to Bossaso in Somalia's northeast Puntland region when it fell afoul of the pirates in waters deemed highly unsafe by international maritime agencies.

Both the International Maritime Board (IMB), a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, and the United States have in recent months issued increasingly dire alerts about threats to shipping off the Somali coast.

Earlier this month, the IMB advised vessels not making calls in the region to stay at least 50 miles (85 kilometers), and preferably further, from the coast of the lawless nation.

The WFP hijacking is the sixth reported piracy incident in Somali waters since March, including one earlier this month in which a US naval destroyer intervened to save a vessel under attack.

On June 6 off Mogadishu three gunmen in a white speedboat opened fire with automatic weapons on a bulk carrier identified as the Tigris, according to the

The destroyer Gonzalez, which was in in the area, responded to the vessel's distress call, firing flares and .50-caliber machine guns and escorting the carrier further out to sea, it said.

There were "no injuries to crew but gunfire by pirates caused 10 bullet holes on the starboard side near the bridge," the IMB said in a brief description of the incident.

In March, the United States advised western shipping firms of possible speedboat-launched terrorist attacks on vessels in the Indian Ocean off the coast of east Africa, including Somali waters.

In at least two of the previous cases pirates took crews hostage.

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