Word: owerri
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With the federal capture of Owerri two weeks ago, Nigeria's civil war entered a new and perhaps final phase. Secessionist Biafra, now less than one-tenth its original size, holds but one important town: Umuahia. Should it fall, Lieut. Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu would lose his last physical claim on breakaway statehood and be forced, if he is still able, to carry on his fight for Biafra's Ibo people from the jungle. As it advanced slowly but steadily on Umuahia last week, TIME Correspondent Edward Hughes joined Nigeria's 3rd Marine Commando division. His report...
...stranglehold tightened last week on Biafra, where the secessionist forces of Lieut. Colonel Chukwuemeka Ojukwu are encircled by the federal Nigerian army. Only three cities remain in Biafran control: Umuahia, Owerri and Aba. Of these three, by far the most vital to Ojukwu is Aba, a trade and rail center of 100,000 before the war and Biafra's provisional capital. It was at Aba that Nigeria's 3rd Division, moving steadily north from Port Harcourt, aimed its assault...
...Algeria. His ability to make the most of Biafra's minimal military resources has moved him steadily upward in rank and power since he signed on last December. When news of the federal onslaught reached Ojukwu, he hurried to Steiner's headquarters in an abandoned nunnery in Owerri...
Ojukwu's military situation, on the other hand, has grown steadily worse. The Biafrans' territory has shrunk to less than one-third its original 29,000 square miles, now fills a lopsided circle about the size of Vermont. The Ibos hold only three important cities?Aba, Owerri and Umuahia?and federal forces are pushing toward all three. Increasingly, the Biafrans have based their defense on quick guerrilla-type strikes, which are the specialty of a small group of hard-bitten European mercenaries who have thrown in their lot with Biafra. Last week, in one of their most successful raids...
Once again, thousands of civilians took to the roads and the bush, fleeing before the new offensive, and towns like Aba, Owerri and Umuahia were choked with the homeless, the destitute and the starving. Yet somehow the Biafrans continued to hold on against superior forces and firepower, training with sticks, fighting back with the motley array of weapons they have managed to pick up from European arms markets in recent months. They fared less well on another front: there was still no agreement on relief measures for starving Biafrans. As a result, hundreds, perhaps thousands died every day, and their...