Somali hijackers on Saturday said they had released a German ship and its crew which they had been holding for three months after being paid a ransom of 1.8 million dollars.

"We have released the ship and its crew overnight after receiving a ransom of one million and eight hundred dollars. It is free now and gone," Mohamed Abdi, a pirate in Eyl told AFP by telephone.

In Berlin the German foreign ministry confirmed a German cargo ship had been freed and identified it as the MV Victoria, flying the Antigua and Barbuda flag.

The hijackers had not named the ship but it had initially been thought to be the Hansa Stavanger.

The 146-metre MV Victoria, belonging to a German shipper, was captured on May 5 with 11 men on board, 75 kilometres (45 miles) south of the Yemeni port of Al-Mukalla, as it was on its way to the Red Sea port of Jeddah.

Media reports in Berlin said the crew was Romanian.

The Hansa Stavanger, a container ship, was seized on April 4 in the Indian Ocean, with its crew of 24, including five Germans, one of them the captain.

Elders in Eyl confirmed the release of a German ship but were unable to comment on the ransom.

"The German ship was released overnight by the pirates and it moved but I don't know what has been paid to the pirates," Abdulahi Garaad Mohamed, an elder in Eyl said.

Somali hijackers attacked more than 130 merchant ships off Somalia last year, a rise of more than 200 percent on 2007, according to the Kuala Lumpur-based International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre.

The world's naval powers have deployed dozens of warships to the lawless waters off Somalia over the past year in a bid to curb attacks on one of the world's busiest maritime trade routes.