The Special Representative of the UN Secretary General for Somalia has appealed to Somali authorities to press for the release of a food aid-laden ship hijacked off the country's northeastern coast in June.

In a statement issued in Nairobi Monday, Francois Lounseny Fall called on the Somali interim President Abdullahi Yusuf Ahmed and Prime Minister Ali Muhammad Gedi to intervene, adding that the hijacking of a humanitarian aid ship has dragged on for too long.

"This further imposition on the victims of last December's Tsunami has dragged on far too long," he said in the statement.

"Some 30,000 people in Somalia's northeastern coastal communities are dependent on a continuous flow of food assistance, " the UN envoy added.

The MV Semlow was hijacked on June 27 between Haradhere and Hobyo, some 400 km northeast of the capital, Mogadishu, on its way to the Gulf of Aden port of Bossaso, in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland.

The vessel had been chartered by the World Food Program (WFP) to deliver some 850 tons of rice to survivors of the December 26 Indian Ocean tsunami, which devastated much of the country's northeastern coastline.

The UN envoy who is at the forefront in finding a lasting solution to rifts over the location of the interim Somali government lauded WFP for having overcome the initial interruption in the supply of food aid to tsunami-affected populations as a result of the ship's capture.

However, he said he was greatly concerned for the safety of the ship's crew of eight Kenyans, a Tanzanian engineer and a Sri Lankan captain, as well as for the security of the vessel and its humanitarian cargo.

WFP country director for Somalia, Robert Hauser, had said he was "extremely pleased" at Fall's intervention, urging the Transitional Federal Government to resolve the issue.

Somalia is awash with some 60,000 militia men and has been without a functioning national government since 1991, which hampered relief efforts to tsunami victims.

In July, the International Maritime Board warned of a surge in piracy in the region and advised vessels to stay at least 85 km away from the lawless coast if possible.

Early this year, 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.

Source: Xinhua