The sealed blue container has a rope attached to it and officials suspect it was left in the water by people dumping hazardous waste.

It was found in the Mudug region of central Somalia, where beaches are generally pristine and sandy.

The barrel washed up this week in Ilfohshe, near the town of Jariban, about 900km north-east of the Somali capital Mogadishu.

“People at Ilfohshe and the coastal communities in Mudug region are particularly alerted to distance themselves from strange containers that are likely to contain poison and could enclose explosive materials. Such hazard can affect the people and the environment,” the police said in a statement.

This is not the first time that coastal communities have encountered strange containers floating in their waters.

In 2004, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) found barrels of unknown material on the coast near Puntland. Unknown companies from Europe were initially blamed for using Somalia’s poorly policed waters to dump toxic waste. But UNEP’s analysis did not confirm the toxicity of the substances dumped into the waters at the time.

There have been no proper assessments of the intensity of such dumping, but some estimates suggest that up to 35 million tonnes of waste have been illegally dumped in Somali waters, including medical, agricultural, nuclear and industrial waste.

These materials have affected the activities of local fishermen and have been blamed for fuelling sea piracy as locals seek alternative sources of income, or to prevent illegal dumping.

Somalia’s federal states with coastlines – Puntland, Galmudug, Hirshabelle, South West and Jubbaland – have all found strange containers washed up on their beaches. But so far there has been no clear answer as to whether they are dangerous or not.

Captain Mohamud Hussein Moge, a senior adviser at the Federal Ministry of Fisheries and Blue Economy, said people must be careful not to label every object they see on the sea as poisonous.

“Sometimes ships exchange goods or share materials while at sea. Thus, since they are not sailing and not anchored, they have to use heavy barrels chained together so they are not easily moved by currents,” he explained.

“If the barrels were just some of those used to balance ships in operations and got loose, they are harmless,” said Mr Moge, a former deputy minister for Fisheries and Marine Resources in Hirshabelle, a federal member state in central Somalia.

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Mohamed Mohamud Quluhiye, director of the Somali Marine and Fisheries Institute in Puntland, also warned against rushing to label all objects as hazardous.

“People with no scientific background, including the law enforcers, should exercise care when issuing statements,” he said.