A ship carrying food aid for Somali tsunami victims remains in the hands of Somali pirates after more than two months, a spokesperson for the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) said on Friday in Nairobi.
”We received a request through a third party to change the port of discharge,” he said, renewing calls for the release of the 10 crew members who are mainly from Kenya.
The hijackers had wanted the 850 tonnes of rice, donated by Germany and Japan, to be distributed in the central region of Somalia to their clan members.
”We’d like to hope that the ship goes to Bosasso, that the food aid is unloaded and given to the authorities and distributed to the people who need it with our assistance,” the spokesperson said.
The WFP has since sent more ships to Somalia to replace the hijacked food aid and to continue food distribution in the war-torn country, where more than one million people rely on food aid.
Somali pirates hijacked the UN-contracted vessel on June 27.
It is the first time in the WFP’s history that a ship carrying relief food has been hijacked.
More ships have been hijacked off Somalia’s vast coastline in a recent spate of piracy incidents, including three Taiwanese cargo vessels. — Sapa-DPA