Word: biafra
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...from the sea, Ojukwu faced an overwhelming problem: how to feed a nation of 7,000,000 by air. A consortium of Catholic and Protestant relief agencies organized an air force of lumbering four-engine propeller airplanes to supply Biafra despite protests from Gowon that they were prolonging the war and violating Nigerian airspace...
...outset, Biafra fared well militarily. Ibos had been the backbone of the Nigerian army; their departure for home after the 1967 pogrom deprived Gowon of half his officer corps and three-quarters of the army's administrative force. Gowon had to replace the secessionists while building his army from a peacetime force of only 7,000 to an eventual total of 180,000. Five weeks passed before Gowon proceeded cautiously to battle by dispatching eight battalions against Biafra. The results were discouraging. Nigerian soldiers refused to fight at night because they were afraid of juju (evil spirits). Regardless...
...early 1968, however, the difference in troop strength began to be felt. Federal forces won one of the most important battles of the war by taking the key shipping center of Calabar and Port Harcourt, with its airport, harbor and oil installations. For the remainder of the fight, Biafra was a landlocked island. Apart from radios, its sole contact with the world was a 75-ft.-wide strip of highway at Uli that had been converted into an airstrip with the code name Annabelle...
Last year, with fresh troops and new supplies, Ojukwu briefly went over to the offensive. By August, seven-eighths of Biafra's former territory had been recovered, including Owerri, where 1,900 Nigerian troops were killed. But the optimism created by such military feats was soon dimmed by the specter of renewed starvation. In parts of Biafra's enclave two-thirds of the population suffered from malnutrition. As many as 1,000 children died in a single day; they were buried at night by lamplight in mass graves...
...small village near Owerri, with no indication that he foresaw the debacle approaching. He followed a schedule that began at 8 a.m. and often continued until 3:30 a.m. -"I have not been much of a sleeper since I was a child." He pinned his hopes for Biafra's survival on domestic disorders in Nigeria. "Nigeria is a free-for-all," he said. "Gowon's only asset is that he can get British support." Bitterly, Ojukwu described the battles around him as "Mr. Wilson's war for African...