At the same time, WFP declared that it now regarded as "null and void" an arrangement reached between the transitional Somali government and community leaders that it believed would lead to the release of the ship earlier this week.

In a statement released here, the agency deplored the refusal of the pirates to offload the food aid cargo at the Somali port of El-Maan and allow the ship and 10-member crew to return to their Mombasa, Kenya, home port as it said it had understood would occur.

"It is now clear that the hijackers are not demonstrating any meaningful actions towards finding the necessary resolution of this problem," WFP deputy country director for Somalia Leo van der Velden said.

"In the light of their failure to comply with the deal reached this week and the earlier agreement to end the crisis, we have no choice but to declare that from our standpoint, the agreements reached so far are null and void," he said.

"WFP demands the unconditional release of the vessel, its crew and cargo," van der Velden said. "The crew members have suffered long enough and the humanitarian cargo has unlawfully been denied to the people who need it."

The ship, the St Vincent and the Grenadines-registered MV Semlow, was seized on July 27 off Haradere, about 300 kilometres (185 miles) north of Mogadishu, where it was held until Monday when it docked at El-Maan, about 35 kilometers (25 miles) north of the capital.

Under an August 5 agreement, WFP had believed the 850 tonnes of German- and Japanese-donated rice intended for Somali tsunami victims would be offloaded at El-Maan and the ship and crew allowed to go to Mombasa.

Instead, the pirates, who have made a variety of ransom demands all of which the WFP has rejected, issued new conditions for the release of the vessel, crew and cargo and set sail from El-Maan on Thursday in the direction of Mogadishu.

On Friday, the WFP also warned the hijackers not to loot or try to sell the cargo, which it stressed was intended as humanitarian assistance for some 28,000 Somali victims of last year's Indian Ocean tsunami.

"This is humanitarian relief food and which is not for sale under any circumstances," van der Velden said. "Anyone involved in the buying or selling this food would be committing a criminal offence."

All rights reserved. � 2005 Agence France-Presse. Sections of the information displayed on this page (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the content of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presse.

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