Test site returned to Aborigines

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An indigenous group in Australia has finally received the last tract of territory seized from it half a century ago.

The land, at Maralinga, had been taken for use in British nuclear tests.

The tribe has now taken possession of 3,000 sq km (1,158 sq miles) of ancestral land.

Britain detonated its first atomic bomb in the red desert at Maralinga in 1956, and half a dozen similar explosions followed over the next decade.

Off limits

At an official ceremony at Maralinga village, the final section of the nuclear test site was handed back by the South Australian Governor Rear Admiral Kevin Scarce, who said that a sad chapter in history was now closing.

"In Britain's race to develop a nuclear weapon capability, this area was declared off limits to the traditional owners and they were forced to leave. Most were moved to coastal grey-sand country at Yalata, a place which they had no connection," he said.

The site, known as Section 400, was heavily polluted by radiation and hazardous chemicals.

It has taken the Australian government five years to decontaminate the area.

Despite concerns among some locals that the land remains tainted, Maralinga elder Keith Peters celebrated a triumphant day.

"Our people fought, they fought so bad to get the land back, back in the past in the '80s, and they've finally made it," he said.

South Australia's Aboriginal Affairs Minister Jay Weatherill insisted that British nuclear tests had been conducted with little regard to indigenous people, who had been through "an unthinkable experience".

Mr Weatherill said that while the Maralinga story was one of suffering and loss, the return of sacred country would heal some of the wounds of the past.