KUALA LUMPUR - THE young Dutch girl at the centre of a highly publicised custody battle that sparked the 1950 Maria Hertogh riots has died, Bernama reported on Thursday.

Ms Hertogh died of leukaemia in Huijbergen, the Netherlands, on Wednesday. She was 72.

In 1950, when the High Court in Singapore awarded custody of the 13-year-old girl back to her biological Catholic Dutch parents, the ruling ignited three days of riots. Eighteen people were killed and 173 injured.

Ms Hertogh's name has come up in issues involving race and religion in Singapore ever since.

Last month, Deputy Public Prosecutor Anandan Bala raised the spectre of the Maria Hertogh riots when he pushed for jail terms for a Christian couple sentenced to eight weeks in prison for distributing and possessing seditious publications.

Born in 1937 in Java, Ms Hertogh was adopted by a Malay woman during World War II when she was five years old. Her parents had been interned as prisoners of war after the Japanese invaded Java.

The little girl was brought up as a Muslim and took on a Malay name, Nadra Ma'arof. Troubles began when the Hertoghs tried to claim their daughter back after the Japanese surrendered.

What followed was a legal tussle between the Hertoghs and Cik Aminah, Ms Hertogh's foster mother, which played out for more than half a year under intense media scrutiny.

In mid-December 1950, Maria and her mother left Singapore for the Netherlands.

Learning from the lessons of one of the worst race riots in Singapore, the Singapore Government chose to emphasise multi-culturalism and the importance of race relations.

Read the full story in Friday's edition of The Straits Times.