Nairobi - Somali regional authorities said they had arrested four hijackers of a UN-chartered food aid ship, but four pirates were still in control of the MV Rozen off the Somali coast, the WFP reported on Monday.
Armed pirates hijacked the UN-chartered ship on Sunday morning after it had delivered 1 800 tonnes of food aid, with six Sri Lankan and six Kenyan crew members onboard.
"The arrest is welcome news, but the safe release of the crew and the vessel remains our chief concern. We very much hope this ordeal will finish soon," said the World Food Programme Somalia's Country Director Peter Goossens.
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Authorities in the semi-autonomous northern region of Puntland arrested the men when they went ashore to buy supplies in the town of Bargal, the WFP said.
The ship was anchored off the coast of northeastern Somalia on Monday, surrounded by local police boats, but it was now reportedly sailing southwards, the statement said.
The WFP appealed for "people to respect the need for humanitarian delivery corridors", Goossens said, after the third seizure of a WFP food aid ship in the past two years.
WFP was in contact with Somalia's interim government, Puntland authorities and the vessel's agents, Motaku Shipping Agencies, based in Mombasa, Kenya.
Waters off the unpatrolled 3 700km Somali coastline saw scores of pirate attacks between March 2005 and June last year.
The latest attack sparked fears that piracy was back after almost disappearing from Somalia's long coastline during six months of strict Islamist control of Mogadishu and central and southern Somalia.
The interim Somali government, with Ethiopian military help, drove out the powerful Islamists late last year.
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