Fifteen Georgian sailors held hostage by pirates for more than a year off the coast of lawless Somalia have been freed, officials from the ex-Soviet state said on Sunday.

"The liberation of the Georgian sailors hijacked by Somali pirates has ended successfully," Georgia’s Maritime Transport Agency said in a statement.

Pirates boarded the Malta-flagged cargo ship and seized the crew of 15 Georgians and three Turks off the Gulf of Aden in September 2010.

The Georgian statement said that government efforts had achieved the seamen's release but did not specify whether the Turkish sailors had been freed or not.

The pirates had been demanding $9 million (7.1 million euros) to release the ship but the Georgian statement did not say whether any ransom had been paid.

Piracy off the coast of Somalia, on a crucial maritime route leading to the Suez Canal, surged in 2007 and reached record levels in 2010 according to a report by the International Maritime Bureau.

After Georgia became independent from the Soviet Union in 1991, its once-powerful cargo fleet was sold off and hundreds of seamen were left jobless causing many seamen to sign contracts that do little to protect their rights or safety, according to union officials.