"We have suspended all shipments of food aid to Somalia due to the insecurity of Somali waters," the agency said in a statement released in the Kenyan capital. "The decision will be reviewed depending on the release of the vessel."

The WFP supplies some 3,000 tonnes of food for about 275,000 Somalis per month and had about two weeks of stocks currently in the country. If the ship is released quickly there should be "no major interruption of WFP operations," it said.

The suspension of aid came as efforts to win the release of the hijacked ship carrying food tsunami victims Somalia's northeastern Puntland region continued with no apparent change in demands from pirates who stormed the vessel last Monday.

WFP officials said earlier Monday they were "hopeful" for the release of the ship, its 10-member crew and the 850 tonnes of Japanese- and German-donated rice but had no new information about the status of the negotiations.

"We remain hopeful that things will work out," WFP spokeswoman Rene McGuffin said. "We understand that the crew and the food are still on the ship and they are fine."

She and other WFP officials repeated the WFP's stance that the hijacking contravened international humanitarian law and that the vessel, crew and cargo should be released immediately.

The crew includes a Sri Lankan captain, a Tanzanian engineer and eight Kenyan deckhands, whom the Kenyan government said in a statement released late Monday were "safe and in good health."

Armed men hijacked the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered MV Semlow last Monday in pirate-infested waters about 300 kilometers (185 miles) northeast of Mogadishu and demanded a half-million-dollar (415,000-euro) ransom for its release the next day.

Thus far both the ship's owners and WFP have refused to pay any ransom.

The 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 was taken while on its way from Mombasa to Bossaso in Puntland region when it fell foul of the pirates in an area 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.

Last 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 due to threats from pirates.

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

In that incident, 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 IMB.

The US 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.

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.

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