European Union's anti-piracy mission said today that pirates had hijacked a yacht off the Seychelles and that one of its passengers had been picked up by a warship.

Local sources in Somalia reported at the weekend that pirates had seized a man and a woman from their yacht and opened fire on a third man who had resisted efforts to take him to shore.

"The only thing we can say at this stage is that we currently have one of the persons from the captured yacht on board one of our warships," Lieutenant Colonel Per Klingvall, a spokesman for the EU mission, told AFP.

He was unable to provide more details on the hijacking, the passengers or the health of the man.

The Somali local sources said Sunday the two hostages were held in an inaccessible part of Barawe, southern Somalia, after having been seized from their yacht a few days earlier.

Several helicopters had trailed the pirates as they reached land, said the Somali sources.

"Military helicopters tried to intercept the pirates before they reached the coast this morning with the three hostages kidnapped near the Seychelles a few days ago," Hassan Abukar, a pirate in the Somali port of Harardere, told AFP.

The pirates had apparently fired on one of the hostages, "a black man who refused to go ashore, and they left him there, but I can't say if he is dead," he added.

"Fishermen saw several helicopters chasing the pirates who were holding three foreign hostages, including a black man," Suleman Moalim Ahmed, an elder living in Barawe told AFP.

The pirates managed to reach land with a man and a woman, both white, leaving the third hostage as the helicopters approached, according to the accounts he had heard.