Word: kano
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From November until late January, pilots landing at the International Airport near the northern Nigerian city of Kano must worry about a special hazard. Hot winds off the Sahara, known as harmattan, pick up so much dust and sand that the sky becomes hazy and visibility is drastically reduced. Last week a Royal Jordanian Airlines Boeing 707 coming in for a landing at Kano had to make a second attempt because of the blinding harmattan. As the plane landed on the second try, the 707 suddenly burst into flames, and 176 of its 202 passengers were killed. The death toll...
...worked in Eastern Nigeria and Biafra for nine years, and I was struck by your quote from a diplomat in Lagos: "An Ibo would be out of his mind to show up in Hausa towns like Kano, Kaduna or Sokoto. They don't want him there." In this statement the real reason for the secession in 1967 is touched: the fact that the Easterners were not wanted and not safe in their own country...
...valuable background files from TIME'S Nairobi Bureau Chief Edwin Reingold and Ottawa Bureau Chief Alan Grossman. During two years in West Africa, Grossman covered the Ibo massacres that led to the present civil war. Among his more vivid memories, Grossman recalled walking along the platform at the Kano railroad station, "a handkerchief clasped to my nose to dull the lingering stench of more than a hundred Ibo corpses." For him, too, it was all a depressing experience...
Apparently convinced that he needs sharper scalpels, Gowon, who has been refused arms by the U.S., has turned to the Soviet bloc for help. Last week the Kano airport was shut down for the arrival of secret cargo. The secret was soon out. The cargo included two dozen obsolescent Russian MIG fighters and six Czech L -26 jet trainers that can be fitted to carry bombs and rockets. With them came some 150 Soviet-bloc mechanics, many of them with small arms in holsters at their waists...
Last month Ibo passengers on West African Airways' London-to-Lagos jet were hauled off the plane and machine-gunned in the northern Nigerian way station of Kano. Pan American's New York-to-Nairobi Flight 150 lived up to the tradition. Last week a simple refueling halt enroute grew into an international incident...