Somali pirates have released a St. Kitts-flagged ship and its 16 crew after 26 days in captivity, Kenya's maritime official said on Tuesday.

Andrew Mwangura, Coordinator of the Mombasa-based Seafarers Assistance Program (SAP), said the Mariam Queen was released after the owners paid 100,000 U.S. dollar ransom.

"The Mariam Queen has been released and is sailing towards Mogadishu to offload the cargo. We are told the owners paid 100, 000 U.S. dollars to secure its release," Mwangura said by telephone from Mombasa.

"The pirates had earlier demanded 150,000 dollars as a ransom before the cargo ship's release but this was later reduced to 100, 000 dollars," said Mwangura.

The St. Kitts-flagged vessel was seized in the semi-autonomous province of Puntland in the northeast of pirate-infested Somalia on May 3.

Mwangura said a UN World Food Program (WFP)-contracted cargo ship -- the MV Victoria -- which escaped an attack by pirates earlier this month in the pirate-infested Somali wasters was expected to dock in Mombasa later Tuesday.

Piracy was rampant in Somalia, but stopped during last year's Islamist rule, and the Mariam Queen's hijacking was the fourth reported since the interim government and its Ethiopian allies routed Islamists from Mogadishu in January this year.

Since the overthrow of the Islamic Courts at the turn of the year, Somalia has been descending back into the violence and chaos seen in the previous 16 years, and this latest incident raises fears of a resumption of lawlessness on the seas as well.

At least six vessels have been hijacked in the past three months as the global maritime body warned that the Horn of Africa nation's coastline is one of the most dangerous in the world.

Source: Xinhua