Somali pirates who seized a UN- chartered ship carrying tsunami aid to Somalia in June have not off-loaded any of its cargo as has been reported by various media, UN World Food Program (WFP) confirmed here Friday.

In a statement issued in Nairobi, the UN food agency has meanwhile urged the Somali interim government to pressurize for the release of ten hostages held by the hijackers.

The WFP said contrary to some media reports quoting local residents, it understood the cargo of food aid aboard the MV Semlow at sea off the town of Haradhere in central Somalia was still largely intact and was not being unloaded by the hijackers using small boats.

"Our contacts in the region assure us that the vast bulk of the 850 metric tons of rice aboard the MV Semlow has not been taken ashore or removed from the ship," said WFP Somalia Country Director Robert Hauser in the statement.

"We once again call for the immediate, unconditional release of the ship, its crew and the cargo of food," he said.

Hauser was reacting to media reports that the hijackers had off- loaded some of the food aid from the ship and were selling it in markets in and around Haradhere, where the ship is anchored.

The MV Semlow -- with its crew of Kenyan, Tanzanian and Sri- Lankan nationals -- was seized on June 27 between Haradhere and Hobyo, some 400 km northeast of the Somali capital, Mogadishu, en route to the Gulf of Aden port of Bossaso in the self-declared autonomous region of Puntland.

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

A spokesman for the hijackers said in June that central Somalia 's South Mudug region -- where Haradhere is located -- had been " neglected" by aid agencies, "even though it was affected by the tsunami." HOSTAGES IN DIRE SITUATION

WFP decried that 54 days have passed since the pirates took the crew captive yet there has not been any intervention from the international community.

"The hostages are not Italian, French or American. There are no discussions of the hijackers asking for millions of dollars to set them free," it said.

"As it drags through its eighth week, the story of the 10-man crew aboard the MV Semlow off Somalia, who were simply trying to bring food aid to a hungry nation, only sometimes makes headlines in their home countries," WFP added.

The WFP, which chartered the Semlow, said it has heard from the ship's agents that while food supplies for the crew were adequate, drinking water was rationed, adding that the conditions for the crew, confined to the ship and held under duress, "are undoubtedly difficult."

"It must be a terrible, and a very worrying ordeal for all 10 of them stuck on that ship still anchored 45 km from the Somali coast. The poor families of the crew have waited too long to see their loved ones safe," Hauser lamented.

The hostages' families have appealed to Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki to intervene and have the crew released.

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.

The WFP hijacking was the sixth reported piracy incident in Somali waters since March.

Source: Xinhua