Crew onboard hijacked ship are "desperate": report

BERLIN (Reuters) - The 24 hostages on board a German ship that was hijacked by Somali pirates in April have no more water, food or medicine, a German weekly reported, citing comments emailed by the captain of the ship.

The 20,000-tonne container vessel, Hansa Stavanger, was captured about 400 miles off the southern Somali port of Kismayu on April 4.

"We just cannot carry on," the captain wrote in an email to his wife Friday, the first sign of life in over three weeks, Der Spiegel magazine reported.

"We have no water, no food and no medicine," he wrote.

The Hamburg shipping company Leonhardt & Blumberg that owns the Hansa Stavanger was not available to comment on the authenticity of the emails.

Piracy has flourished in recent months off the busy Gulf of Aden and Indian Ocean shipping lanes and seaborne gangs have seized several cargo ships and collected tens of millions of dollars in ransom for the safe release of crews and cargoes.

The captain of the Hansa Stavanger wrote in one email that the pirates had become impatient when the negotiations with the Hamburg shipping company that owns the vessel stalled at the end of April. The pirates threatened to kill the crew held hostage.

"They put tape over my eyes and dragged me onto the deck ... They shouted and sent bullets flying close next to my head."

Five Germans, three Russians, two Ukrainians, and 14 Filippinos are believed to be on board on the ship.

A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said a crisis management team was working in close cooperation with the shipping company that owned Hansa Stavanger to find a solution.

Der Spiegel reported that the captain also sent an email to Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel, asking her for help.

"We are all desperate, and some of us are even ill," the captain wrote. "We ask you politely, but with determination, to help us."

(Reporting by Sarah Marsh and Hans Busemann)