ANKARA, July 14 (Xinhua) -- One of the captains of a Turkish-flagged ship hijacked by Somali pirates contacted her family via a satellite phone on Tuesday to convey the hijackers' ransom demand, the semi-official Anatolia news agency reported.

    The Turkish-flagged "Horizon-1" ship's 4th captain Aysun Akbay called her sister and asked her family to convince the owner of the ship to pay the ransom demanded by the pirates, the hostage's father Ozcan Akbay was quoted as saying.

    The report did not say how much the pirates demanded for the release of the ship seized by Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden last week.

    "My daughter told me that the pirates asked for ransom from the ship's owner company, however representatives of the company told them that the ransom was too high and they could not pay such an amount," Akbay said.

    "My daughter also told me that all the crew members on board were concerned about their families and they did not know whether their relatives were informed of the situation," Akbay added.

    Akbay asked the relatives of the Turkish hostages to contact him to get further information.

    Somali pirates attacked the Turkish-flagged Horizon-1 with 23 Turkish crew members on board on July 8 when the ship was en route to Jordan from Saudi Arabia.