NAIROBI,(insidesomalia.org)- Pirates holding about a dozen boats off lawless Somalia have freed a German-owned cargo ship and a Japanese-operated chemical tanker after ransom payments, one of the owners and sources on the ground said on Thursday.

The Bremen-based owners of the German ship "BBC Trinidad" said it had paid more than $1 million to ransom the ship, while Andrew Mwangura, of the East African Seafarers' Association, said large ransoms might have been paid in both cases.

Despite warnings from the U.N. Security Council of international action against them, pirates have this year been running amok in the Gulf of Aden, a major sea artery used by some 20,000 vessels a year heading to and from the Suez Canal.

Beluga Shipping GmbH, said the crew of the German vessel, which was seized on Aug. 21 in the Gulf of Aden en route to Oman from Houston, Texas, had been released unharmed.

"I can confirm a ransom was paid," a spokeswoman for the firm said. "It was a low seven-figure sum in U.S. dollars." She said she had no information regarding the Japanese tanker.

Sources close to the pirate gangs based in the northern Somali region of Puntland also confirmed that the "MT Irene", registered in Panama but managed from Japan, was going free.

"Yes, it looks like it is in the process of being released," Mwangura also told Reuters of Irene, also seized on Aug. 21 and carrying a crew of 15 Filipinos and three Croats.

"We understand the gang were demanding about $2.47 million ransom (for Irene). Maybe they got less, I don't know. They are certainly making a lot of money," said Mwangura, whose group is based in the Kenyan port of Mombasa.

Trinidad had a captain from Slovenia, and two Russians and 10 Filipinos also in the crew, he said.

Beluga said it was the first time one of its ships had been hijacked, and urged authorities to provide convoys in the region with a naval escort.

Heavily-armed Somali gunmen, usually using speedboats and now also boasting a French yacht they have captured, have seized more than 30 vessels in total so far this year.

The violence at sea has fed off chaos onshore.

Islamist insurgents are battling Somalia's interim government in Mogadishu and their Ethiopian military backers in the latest round of Somalia's 17-year-old civil conflict.

Mwangura's group says it has been telling shipping companies for years not to pay ransoms to Somali gangs, but many were doing so, fuelling a now lucrative and spiralling trade.

In Puntland, a local official blamed the international community for failing to act against the pirates despite the presence of French and American military bases in the region.

"We are condemning countries like the U.S. and France who are mandated to protect Somali waters from pirates' actions," Abdulqadir Muse Yusuf, fisheries minister for the semi-autonomous region, told Reuters.

"We know they have been given full mandate by the Security Council to intervene... We appeal to the United Nations to set up an international force to secure security for Somalia territorial waters."

Pirate gangs are enjoying their new-found wealth from ransom payments, buying new cars, building houses and taking additional wives thanks to this year's boom in their illicit trade. (Additional reporting by Dave Graham, editing by Matthew Jones).

Source: AP