A hijacked Chinese fishing vessel is being held off the coast of the southern Somalia port city of Kismanyu.

The 24 crew members on board, 16 of them Chinese, were "fine," a pirate leader told local radio in Mogadishu, the Somali capital, yesterday.

The pirates who took control of the boat were armed with grenade launchers and automatic weapons.

The leader, who did not identify himself, told Shabelle Radio, that his group seized the Chinese boat about 50 kilometers off the coast of Kismanyu, 500 kilometers south of Mogadishu, late on Thursday afternoon.

He said the vessel was fishing off Somali territorial waters, adding that the boat and crew "will be put before the law and punished accordingly." Specific demands would be made "later."

But a source with the Chinese Ministry of Transport said the ship, Tianyu No. 8, was fishing off the Kenyan coast when it was seized.

The boat is owned by the Tianjin Ocean Fishing Company and the 24 crew members are made up of the 16 Chinese, including one from Taiwan, one Japanese, three Filipinos and four Vietnamese.

It is the first time that piracy, widespread on the northern and northeastern Somali coast, was reported off the southern Somali coast.

Andrew Mwangura, coordinator of the East African Seafarers' Association, said the attack came hours after a Russian-operated cargo ship off the coast of Somalia escaped heavily armed pirates.

Two pirates and a crewman on the Russian ship, the Captain Maslov, died in an exchange of gunfire, Mwangura said.