WASHINGTON: African-Americans are victims of nearly half the murders committed in the United States despite making up only 13 per cent of the population, a report published on Thursday showed.

Around 8,000 of nearly 16,500 murder victims in 2005, or 49 per cent, were black Americans, according to the report released by the statistics bureau of the Department of Justice.

Broken down by gender, 6,800 black men were murdered in 2005, making up more than half the nearly 13,000 male murder victims.

Black women made up 35 per cent, or 1,200, of the nearly 3,500 female homicide victims. Young black men aged between 17 and 29 bore a disproportionately high burden in the grim statistics, making up 51 per cent of African-American murder victims. The percentage of white male murder victims in the same age group was 37 per cent.

More than half the murders of blacks took place in densely populated urban areas.

Gang violence was involved in around five per cent of homicides with black victims against seven per cent for white victims. In percentage terms, whites were twice as likely to be killed by a current or former partner than blacks — 12 per cent of whites were murdered by a life partner against six percent of blacks. Blacks were also at greater risk of rape or sexual assault than any other ethnic group except American Indians, the report showed.—AFP