The gunmen, who have been demanding the 850 tonnes of German- and Japanese-donated rice intended for Somali tsunami victims in return for the release of the ship, started removing food from the vessel on Monday, they said.

"They have been taking small amounts of food from the ship for the past three days," said Ahmed Abdi, a clan elder in Haradere, adding that the pirates had informed residents of the town that they had "permission" to remove the cargo.

He told AFP in Mogadishu by radio that the hijackers were using "one small boat" to offload the rice from the ship moored just offshore but could not estimate how much had been taken or say exactly what would happen to the food, which was being stored in a makeshift warehouse.

The UN World Food Programme (WFP), which had hired the ship to transport the rice, was unable to confirm the removal of its cargo but said it was aware of various reports to that effect and condemned any "looting" of humanitarian aid.

"If this is true, we condemn it and we urge that the looting of food aid cease immediately," WFP spokesman Peter Smerdon told AFP in Nairobi.

"We again urge the immediate release of the ship, its crew and what is remaining of the cargo of food aid that was supposed to be given to Somalis in need," he said.

Abdi said the pirates had told residents that at least some of the cargo would be use to repay Haradere shopkeepers from whom they have been "borrowing" food, water and supplies during the ship's seven-week captivity.

Another Haradere resident, radio operator Hassan Ibrahim, also said the hijackers were taking food from the MV Semlow that was seized on June 27 en route from the Kenyan port of Mombasa to Bosasso in Somalia's northeast Puntland region.

"They have started taking the food," he told AFP. "I don't know how much so far, but they say they will take it all."

But a man claiming to be one of the gunmen denied that all the food would be taken and said only a minimal amount of the cargo had been removed to meet "the needs" of the hijackers and the ship's crew.

"No food has been sold even though we have the right to sell it or take it to the villages for distribution," the man, who gave his name as Mohammed Abdi Affweyne, said in a radio call to AFP in Mogadishu.

He also rejected as "worthless" previous attempts to negotiate the release of the ship, its 10-member crew and cargo through diplomats and members of Somalia's transitional government, saying the hijackers would deal only with WFP or the shipowners.

The hijackers seized the the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered ship in pirate-infested waters some 300 kilometres (185 miles) northeast of the capital Mogadishu and initially demanded a 500,000-dollar (404,000-euro) ransom for its release.

Both the International Maritime Board (IMB), a division of the International Chamber of Commerce, and the United States have in recent months issued increasingly dire alerts about threats to shipping off the Somali coast.

The IMB's most recent such alert was issed only Tuesday.

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