Biafran War Memories

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Tag Archives: Otuocha

It Was A Very Slow Death

August 5, 2017by biafranwarmemories Leave a comment

My name is Okey Eweani. I am from Enugu-Agidi in Anambra State, Nigeria. I was born in Jos, Plateau State in 1958. What comes to my mind [about the war] […]

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Biafran War Memories is a digital archive of first-hand accounts of the 1967-1970 Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War. The personal stories of people who remember the war and some who even lived through it are here. This project is an initiative of journalist Chika Oduah.

The July 17, 1968 cover of LIFE Magazine featured the images of malnourished Biafran children

'Biafra: Fighting a War Without Guns' is a BBC documentary film. This film, that led the BBC's 1995 Africa season, was the first attempt to reconstruct in film the troubled history of the Biafra conflict. Featuring a long interview with Colonel Chukwumeka Ojukwu, the leader of Biafra, and leading players from that period, it argues that the Nigerian Civil War was one of the first of modern conflicts in which the war for the international media becomes as important as the fight on the ground. The film is also notable for its use of archive as an independent film element rather than wallpaper to illustrate commentary. In this photo by Agence France-Presse, Nigerian federal army soldiers, prisoners of the Biafran army, wait to be questioned on August 8, 1968 near Ikot Ekpene in Akwa Ibom, southern Nigeria.

His head left his body! How would we react? We were just terrified.

The Biafran Airlift Mission

The Biafran airlift was a humanitarian intervention organized by private groups from 1967-1970, bringing food, medicine, and other supplies into Biafra during its bloody separatist conflict with Nigeria.

Civilians fleeing Aba to go to Umuahia in southeastern Nigerian on August 28, 1968 as the Nigerian federal troops advance toward the city during the Biafran War. AFP PHOTO / Francois Mazure

We were hearing gun shots and bomb blasts and all that so I gathered my brothers and started running with the neighbors.

There was molestation from the Igbo soldiers who were in Kaduna then. Molesting people anyhow.

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British war photographer Don McCullin’s picture of a 9-year-old albino Biafran child is considered by TIME Magazine to be one of the most influential photos of all time. “To be a starving Biafran orphan was to be in a most pitiable situation, but to be a starving albino Biafran was to be in a position beyond description,” McCullin wrote.

Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) was founded in 1971 in France by a group of doctors and journalists in the wake of war and famine in Biafra.

John Lennon is seen here with his wife Yoko Ono on the 25 November 1969 during a press conference held after he returned his MBE to the Queen in protest of Britain's involvement in the Nigerian-Biafra War.

I don’t know who killed him, but he hadn’t died finally. He was about to die, and then somebody came and pulled his trousers. He was just left there. And then as we moved, we saw another one. That one- blood all over his body, already dead. And then that was the first time in fact I saw a corpse.

New York Times reporter Lloyd Garrison at a military checkpoint in Biafra during the 1960's

We saw several skeletons of dead people. Skeletons, when we came back after the end of the war. We buried the skeletons. We buried them. My father’s compound was flattened. It was a battlefield. It was a war front.

Two young soldiers of the Biafran army, Moise, 14 (L) and Ferdinand, 16 (R) talk to one another in the city of Umuahia on August 31, 1968 as the Nigerian federal troops continue their advance during the Biafran war. Photo by Francois Mazure for Agence France-Presse.

20 pounds 1966 1966 coup 1967 1968 Aba Abagana Abia Abia State Aburi Aburi Accord Activism Adamawa Adamawa State Afikpo Aide-de-camp Aircraft Airlift Air raids AK47 Albert-Bernard Bongo/Omar Bongo Ondimba Alex Ekwueme Amaokwe Item Americans Amnesty International Anambra Anara Apapa Arms Army Arochukwu Asaba Asaba Massacre Assemblies of God Church Atani Awka Awka-Ekiti Awkuzu Barrack battalion Battle at Abagana Bauchi Bayelsa BBC Bendel Benin Benue Benue State Biafra Biafran Army Biafran pounds money Biafran Union Biafra One Biafra War Bible bicycle Blockade Bomb Bombs Borno Borno State Boys' Brigade Bread British Bunker Calabar Cameroon camp Canada Cannibalism canoe Carita Caritas cassava Catholic Chad Charles de Gaulle Children Chimamanda Adichie Christians Christmas Chukwuemeka Ojukwu Chukwuma Nzeogwu church Columbia University consciption Conscription cornmeal Cote D'Ivoire Ivory Coast coup Cross River State Dead bodies Delta Delta State Diplomats Disabled Veterans of Biafra Diseases East Africa Ebonyi State Edo Efik Egypt Emmanuel Ifeajuna England Enugu Enugu Garrison Ethiopia Ethnic cleansing Europe farm Fegge Fighter jets food football France Fulani Félix Houphouët-Boigny Gabon Genocide Ghana Girls Gongola State Graves gun boats Haiti Hausa Hospital Human meat Hunger Ibadan Idemili Idol Igbo Igbos Igbo women Ijaw Ijebu Ikeja Ikemba Imo Imo River Imo State Israel Jesus Johnson Aguiyi-Ironsi Jos Jr Julius Nyerere Kaduna Kampala Kano Kanuri King's College Kwashiokor Lafia Lagos Lagos airport lizards London Lorry Lyndon Johnson Maiduguri Major Nzeogwu Makurdi Malnutrition Manchester Mangu Local government Market Marketplace Marriage Martin Luther King Massacre Michael Okpara Military checkpoints militia Missionaries Mothers Murtala Muhammed Muslims Nasarawa Nelson Mandela newspapers New York Niger Bridge Niger Delta Nigerian army Nigerian Biaf Nigerian Biafran War Nigerian soldiers Niger Republic Njikoka Nnamdi Azikiwe Nnewi North Northern No Victor No Vanquished Nsukka Ntueke Nyamiri OAU Obafemi Awolowo Obowo Odekpe Ogbaru Ogbunigwe Ogbunike Ogidi Ogoni Oguta Oil Oji River Ojukwu Oka Okigwe Onitsh Onitsha Ore Oshodi Otukpo Otuocha Owerri Paralyzed Plateau State pogrom Port Harcourt Portugal Poverty Pregnant women Priests Prime Minister Harold Wilson Racism Radio Radio Biafra Rape Rats Reconciliation Reconstruction and Rehabilitation Red Cross Refugee Refugee camp Refugees Relief River Makurdi River Niger Rivers State Roman Catholic Russia Rwanda salt Samuel Akintola Sapele Sardauna Sokoto Ahmadu Bello School Shehu Shehu of Borno Sierra Leone Skeletons Slaughter Snipers Sokoto Soldier Soldiers South South Africa Soviet Union Starvation stockfish Suffering Surrender Tafawa Balewa Tanzania Teacher The Red Cross Train Trains Trench Udi Ugwueke Ugwuta Uju River Ukpabi Asika Uli air strip Umuahia United Kingdom United Nations United States of America University Veteran Western Region Wheelchair Women World Council of Churches Yaba Yakubu Gowon yam Yobe State Yola Yoruba Zambia Zaria
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