DURING a full year of civil war in Nigeria, the secessionist state of Biafra has banked more on winning the world's sympathy than a military victory. Last week the Biafrans had an undeniable claim to attention—and to pity. Malnutrition was killing off more Biafrans than the Federal troops who occupy most of their land. The chief killer was the protein- deficiency disease called kwashiorkor, which turns the hair to reddish gold and cruelly swells both limbs and stomachs. Workers of international relief agencies reported that as many as 3,000 Biafrans a day were dying and that total deaths might reach 2,000,000 by the end of August.

Though those figures may be exaggerated, it was clear that the war's bitterness, the rigidity and suspicion on both sides, was preventing help from reaching many thousands of innocent noncombatants who are sick and dying.

Federal forces have encircled Biafra, the former eastern region of Nigeria. They have occupied its major cities, blockaded its coasts, and pushed an already-overcrowded population of more than 8,000,000—among them 4,500,000 refugees—into a patch of bush and swampland that is one-fourth the size of Biafra's former territory. The Biafrans, most of whom are Ibo tribesmen, fear that they will be massacred just as thousands of their kinsmen in northern Nigerian cities were killed two years ago. Many are starving, but they refuse to come out of hiding in the bush.

In villages that are nearly deserted, old men and women, along with sickly children, die quietly in their huts. At the missionary hospital in Emekuku, a mob of starving children gathers at the door. The hospital has room for only 100 of them: the strongest-looking children are taken in, and the least hopeful cases turned away. "This started out as an epidemic in March," says a London-trained Biafran doctor, Aaron Ifekwunigwe. "Now it is a catastrophe."

Beer & Cyanide. The Biafrans have little left to eat except fruit and their customary yams and cassavas—and even these starchy staples are becoming scarcer. Unable to ship in supplies, they have for months virtually had to do without the protein-rich dried fish, beef and milk that before the war they bought outside the region. More important, the Biafrans have been driven from their richest croplands. Farming has been utterly disrupted by the war and, now that the rainy season has come, there will be almost nothing to harvest for weeks.

The Nigerian military government, headed by Major General Yakubu Go- won, accuses the Biafrans of purposely allowing suffering for the sake of "waging psychological war and seeking diplomatic advantage." The government points out that the Biafrans, led by Lieut. Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, have turned down a plan to have the Red Cross ship food through federal territory to Biafra. But Gowon insists on federal handling of any such shipments, and the Biafrans fear that his men would poison the food: they cite instances of beer laced with cyanide and powdered milk infected with bacteria found in Biafra. Even if Gowon allows the shipment, says Biafran Chief Justice Louis Mbanefo, "we would not touch it."

As a result, about the only food that reaches the Biafrans is flown to the Spanish island of Fernando Po or the Portuguese island of Sao Tome and then, under cover of night, airlifted into the bush. The planes, which are used on other nights to fly in arms and ammunition, land on a lantern-lit stretch of highway somewhere between Owerri and Port Harcourt, frequently under fire from federal ack-ack guns. Because of the high risk, the pilots demand high wages, and the total cost of one shipment of food from Europe can be as much as $25,000. Thus, the relief agencies can afford only one or two a week, and about 1,000 tons of their powdered milk and eggs, baby food and other supplies have piled up in Fernando Po, awaiting reshipment. Meantime, Gowon's agents are reportedly trying to stop flights by offering the pilots as much as $100,000 to hijack and sabotage the planes.

Ojukwu has also said no to a British offer of $600,000 in relief funds. His reason: Britain sells arms to Gowon. Therefore, says Ojukwu, to give food at the same time would only "fatten the Biafrans for slaughter with British-made weapons." Meanwhile his countrymen need an estimated 200 tons of protein food a day to survive, and are getting only about 40. Ojukwu insists that the only way to protect Biafra's sovereignty is to fly the food in. He proposes mercy flights during the daytime, but these require the cooperation of federal Nigeria, which has threatened to shoot down the planes. At week's end relief officials were working on another plan: they reported that Gowon may be willing to let International Red Cross workers distribute food that would be shipped through Biafran ports now held by his troops.

Seeking Sovereignty. The suffering has not brought the two sides any closer to resuming diplomatic talks, which were broken off last month in the Ugandan capital of Kampala. The federal government demands that the Biafrans acknowledge that they are citizens of one country—Nigeria—before any serious bargaining can begin. On the other hand, the Biafrans, who walked out of the Kampala conference, insist on a cease-fire before talking further, since such an agreement would give them the status of a sovereign equal in any negotiations. Ojukwu himself admits that if the war turns into a guerrilla fight in the bush many of his army officers "are not tough enough for that." But the Biafrans apparently choose to die from starvation rather than reach an agreement with the federal government that might expose them to another slaughter.

reporter?:

Ojukwu was a coward who led Ibos to a war they could never have won from the get go.
Any sensible person would have surrendered once their food supply ran out.  But trust power-drunk
Ojukwu, he had to continue with his senseless quest to dominate the Ibos and other Eastern minorities who
were unfortunate to be in the same region as a power-drunk brat.

Ibos being gullible today as they were in 1967 continue to blame others for the failure of their war leaders.
While they continue to whine, the Ijaws and other minorities are becoming more relevant.
Cry babies.

EzeUche:

Foolish Yorubas! Is this your way of attacking Ojukwu, because you know how my people respect this man.

Like my Yoruba professor stated, the Yoruba are the main problem in Nigeria. I cannot even blame the Hausa anymore. Truth be told, the Yoruba cannot be trusted, that even Yorubas cannot trust their own.

hatch#:

Ezeuche Mai ya fa ru ! ( What exactly is the problem)  Ba na so   
Ojukwu's actions during the civil war is what we want to beam a search light on. Not your igbo nation. So there is no need to start getting all aggreiviated on a certain tribe. Abi your Ex-wife yoruba woman.   

EzeUche:

I have no problem with Yoruba women, they have 'done' so many good things for me. My problem is with the Yoruba man. You all are untrustworthy.

It is always the Yoruba who try to spread lies about Ojukwu. He is like the boogey man to your people.

Dede1:


If this nonsense is believable, why on earth did Nigerian government stand up blockade of Biafra?

babapupa:


Stop crying like a b!t!c.h.

Blockade is a standard war strategy, your weak and incompetent war leader should have made arrangements to secure and stockpile food before he opened his fish mouth to declare war on a superior and better equipped army.

And y'all need to quit the victim routine, it's overplayed because the biafran army was not a bystander, they were in a war, they shoot, bombed and killed people on the other side too and in wars, there's always a winner and a loser, not both. You lost.

Deal with it and quit crying.

Dede1:
I am a proud Biafran.

Despite the courageous defeat suffered in the hand of Nigerians and its allies, the tinny Biafra showed the world what a true African country was capable of doing.

I do not ask for apologies but would always remind the Biafrans not to forget the word- “REVENGE” as our battle cry

Dede1:


I do not ask for apologies but would always remind the Biafrans not to forget the word- “REVENGE” as our battle cry

babapupa:


Stop crying like a b!t!c.h.

Blockade is a standard war strategy, your weak and incompetent war leader should have made arrangements to secure and stockpile food before he opened his fish mouth to declare war on a superior and better equipped army.

ezeagu:

I don't see where its wrote out in clear letters that 'ojukwu used starvation as a deliberate strategy during the civil war'.

reporter?:

How can you comprehend with your warped mind? Read again starting with the first paragraph, and this time try to discern.
Ojukwu led Biafrans to a no-win situation. What you hear from your ppl today is nothing but propaganda -it did not work
during the war, and will certainly not work now. Get a grip and acknowledge the failure of your rag-tag incompetent war leaders.
Why fight a war you cannot win?
Haven't you heard that you should never take a knife to a gun fight? That was exactly what your leaders did.

How you folks continue to be blind to the truth is beyond understanding. Understandably, losers need to hype themselves to feel good, but outright delusion is inexcusable.

ezeagu:
89 Error. Relevant information not provided. Cannot compute.

Please try again later with relevant documentation. >>

Mai Suya:

Na wa O! This Biafra thing no dey tire una? The man(OJK) himself has stated many times that the war shouldn't have started in the first place, meaning that the whole secession issue should never have arisen, yet you have a poster here describing himself as a 'proud Biafran'. Abeg make una go sleep.

Mai Suya:

Na wa O! This Biafra thing no dey tire una? The man(OJK) himself has stated many times that the war shouldn't have started in the first place, meaning that the whole secession issue should never have arisen, yet you have a poster here describing himself as a 'proud Biafran'. Abeg make una go sleep.

presido1:

If blockade is the standard war strategy and the Nigerian govt with her allies blocked the supply of Relief Materials, why are we blaming it on Ojuks. So much hatred @ the same time we are praying for Nigeria to work out. I don't think it will with all these hatred from all angle.

EzeUche:

You need to go to sleep. Biafra will never sleep as long as the people who survived that war are still among us. My father survived that war and the stories he would tell me allows the hatred in me to burn bright.

All I want is REVENGE. Not an apology but sweet sweet REVENGE!

nex:

In the world we live in today, I'm suprised that there should even be children that do not know that Ojukwu is among the top 10 cowards that ever lived.


I believe it is something that should be brought into our primary school curriculum so that children can read the exact manner in which that coward set up his own people for destruction, then fled the country.


Has anybody ever noticed how Ojukwu remained fat while the starvation was going on in Biafra? How would he stop the starvation when he was not feeling its pinch? A man like Mahatma Ghandhi, Nelson Mandela, or even Mallam Aminu Kano would have gone on hunger strike for as long as his people were being starved and it would have reflected on the outlook that they too were starving. However, in the case of that bloody coward Ojukwu, he was even getting fatter and his tummy extending out of fullness.


I have no problem with Ibos, but as long as most are not ready and willing to renounce that cowardly trickster and sadist known as Odimegwu Ojukwu, then they are not ready to take their rightful place among the citizens of the world.

hatch#:

Listen to yourself talk, all you want is sweet revenge.  How sad, i guess your father has long moved on while you stay here make noise about seeking revenge.  You wont get revenge sitting behind a computer inside your fathers house throwing un necessary tantrums

EzeUche:

I have to luxury to say this while I am at work. But if the need arises when my people are threatened, I will be in the field. Did I mention that I am in the U.S. military?

babapupa:

Nigeria was not the occupying force, Ojukwu/Biafra was the occupying force and it was up to Ojukwu to plan and secure food for his people before he set on his foolish man mission. And he had tons of opportunities to secure food for his people, but as usual, he selfishly decided to fly in weapons instead of food.