The dried blood on the streets of Sydney?s black ghetto on Monday following an overnight riot by Aborigines was a stark reminder of the continuing deep, and at times violent, divide between white and black Australia.

Aborigines rioted in a black ghetto near the centre of Australia?s largest city, Sydney, until early on Monday over the death of a teenage boy, hurling Molotov cocktails and bricks at police in a nine-hour battle.

About 40 police were injured, many with broken bones, in one of the worst outbreaks of civil unrest in the city in a decade. Relatives blamed police for the boy?s death. New South Wales (NSW) state premier Bob Carr called for calm and police reinforcements were brought in, ready for any repeat.

About 100 Aborigines in Redfern, an inner-city suburb that is home to a notorious Aboriginal area called ?The Block?, attacked 200 riot police on Sunday night and Monday morning. The riot was triggered by the death of Aborigine Thomas Hickey, 17, who was impaled on a metal fence after falling from his bicycle on Saturday. He died in hospital on Sunday morning.

His mother, Gail, said her 17-year-old son was injured while being pursued by police. Police say patrolling officers merely passed by the boy who then sped off, losing control of his bike.

Senior Aboriginal leaders on Monday condemned the violence, the worst civil unrest in Australia?s largest city for at least a decade, but said the riot reflected a wider issue ? the alienation of black Australia. ?People should not kid themselves ? this is Australia,? said Aden Ridgeway, the only Aboriginal politician in the national parliament. ?Last night?s display of violence is an extreme example of the extent of the alienation felt by some Aboriginal kids and the manifestation of the difficult relationships in the area.?

Australia?s 400,000 Aborigines and Torres Strait Islanders make up two percent of Australia?s 20 million population.

Aborigines remain the nation?s most disadvantaged group, dying 20 years younger than other Australians with far higher rates of imprisonment, unemployment, welfare dependency, domestic violence and alcoholism. Most live in remote communities in Australia?s outback, with smaller groups in squalid accommodation on the fringes of regional towns. Very few live in major cities.

Black Australia calls the arrival of white settlers in 1788 ?the invasion?. Thousands were massacred by white settlers or evicted from their ancestral lands.

And Aboriginal leaders say racism in Australia has dictated their lives ever since. A public gathering by Aborigines in Redfern on Monday saw speaker after speaker express anger and frustration at how Aborigines were being treated in Australia.

?There is no such thing as (racial) reconciliation,? said Lyall Munro, an Aboriginal elder in Redfern, citing the thousands of Aborigines in jails or juvenile detention centres.

It was not until a 1967 national vote by white Australians that Aborigines were actually grant citizenship. Until then they were governed under flora and fauna laws. Aborigines in the remote Northern Territory gained land rights in 1976 after a long struggle, but Aborigines in the rest of the country are still fighting for land rights.

A 1997 report by Australia?s human rights commission found an assimilation policy used by various Australian governments up to the 1960s was «systematic racial discrimination and genocide». The report detailed the plight of the ?Stolen Generation? children, taken from their parents to be raised in white families, but who were sexually abused or used as slave labour in Australia?s vast outback. It called for a government apology and compensation, but conservative Prime Minister John Howard will not issue an apology for past atrocities against Aborigines, saying Australians today have nothing to be sorry about.

In recent years Aboriginal leaders have moved away from calls for racial reconciliation to a more pragmatic call for help to tackle drug and alcohol abuse which is killing their people.

Michael Perry