A second United Nations World Food Program (WFP)-chartered food aid ship was hijacked by gunmen in a port in southern Somalia on Wednesday afternoon, WFP said in a statement.

The ship, MV Miltzow, was in the process of being off-loaded, when, at approximately 15:30 local time (1230 GMT), six unidentified gunmen stormed the ship and forced it to leave the port of Merka, 100 km southwest of Mogadishu, the statement said.

An estimated 400 tons of the total cargo of 850 tons of WFP food aid remained on board at the time of the hijacking.

This is the second WFP food aid vessel to be hijacked in Somali waters in several month. In June, the WFP-chartered MV Semlow, carrying 850 metric tons of rice for 28,000 tsunami survivors in the Puntland region, was stormed by gunmen off the coast of central Somalia and held for three months. It was released on October 4.

In the statement, the WFP said it strongly condemned the hijacking.

"It is scandalous that a small number of profiteers would once again hijack humanitarian food supplies destined for fellow Somalis, " said WFP Country Director Robert Hauser.

"The cargo -- consisting of 703 tons of maize, 108 tons of beans and 39 tons of vegetable oil -- was destined for the Lower Juba Valley, which is home to some of the most vulnerable people in Somalia, people who have repeatedly been affected by droughts and floods."

The MV Miltzow, like the MV Semlow, is owned by the Motaku Shipping Agencies based in Mombasa, Kenya. WFP's contractor, the Al- Towfiq General Trading Company of Mogadishu, had chartered the ship directly to deliver the food aid from Mombasa to Merka, from where it was to be distributed to some 78,000 people.

The aid is part of WFP's ongoing free emergency distribution in Jilib district, an area affected by civil strife, floods and, recently, complete failure of the seasonal rains and harvest.

The MV Miltzow arrived in the port of Merka on Monday, after leaving Mombasa on October 7.

The ten-member crew on board include a Kenyan captain, a Ugandan engineer and eight Kenyan crew members.

Yusuf Indha Adde, the governor of the Lower Shabelle Region -- with Merka being the capital -- immediately sent two small boats to pursue the vessel but no further details are available.

After initially suspending shipments to Somalia for security concerns in early July, WFP resumed food deliveries to ensure that its operations continue. Given the continued insecurity off the coast of Somalia, WFP is looking at various alternative routes including overland from Kenya and through Djibouti. Shipping companies are currently demanding armed escorts.

WFP aims to provide one million people in Somalia with food in 2005. These include 50,000 people in the central regions of Galgadud and South Mudug -- including Harardhere -- as well as to the tsunami survivors in Puntland.

Source: Xinhua