Black Americans are being killed at 12 times the rate of white people in the developed world

An average of 19.4 African Americans per 100,000 people were the victims of homicide between 2010 and 2012

Demonstrators have their 'hands up' at a march protesting the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown in 2014

(AFP/Getty)

Black Americans are eight times more likely than white Americans and 12 times more likely than the average person in a developed country to be murdered, according to a new analysis.

Analysis of figures released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) and the US Center for Disease Control by data blog FiveThirtyEight found an average of 19.4 African Americans per 100,000 people were murdered between 2010 and 2012.

The second highest rate was in Lithuania with 6.9 people per 100,000 were murdered.

The Hispanic population in the US had a murder rate of about 5.3 per 100,000 people – roughly same as the overall national average of 5.2 – but white people had a murder rate of just 2.5 per 100,000.

The average rate for the developed world is about 1.6 per 100,000.

The US has been gripped by widespread protests over the shootings of two black men within two days. Philandro Castile, 34, of Falcon Heights, Minnesota, and Alton Sterling, 37, of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, were both shot dead by police officers.

Another man, Derawn Small, also 37, was shot dead by an off-duty police officer after they were involved in a car crash.

Five police officers have been shot dead by four men at a Black Lives Matter protest in Dallas, Texas, on Thursday.

Police chief David Brown said the shooter, who was killed when the police detonated a bomb in his garage hideout, “wanted to kill white people”.

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“The suspect said he was upset about Black Lives Matter, he was upset at the recent police shootings," Mr Brown said.

"He was upset at white people and wanted to kill white people, especially white officers.”

More than 100 black men have been killed across the US by police officers in 2016 alone.

The Black Lives Matter movement began in 2012 after George Zimmerman was acquitted for the murder of unarmed black teenager, Trayvon Martin, in Florida.

The campaign achieved national recognition after the killings of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014 and of Freddie Gray in Baltimore, Maryland, in 2015.

It draws attention to the alleged impunity of white police officers to carry out extrajudicial killings of black people.

There is no suggestion that the Black Lives Matter protest had anything to with the shooting.