By admin
But lo and behold, it’s almost mid 1969 and the gruesome war was still raging on with no sign of ending and millions of casualties had fallen on the Biafran side but not necessarily from bullets, but from an asphyxiating blockade, which had lead to mass starvation of the Biafran population and deaths of mainly children and women and the elderly but this starvation policy was christened a legitimate government policy by the Nigerian de facto prime minister, chief Awolowo and his Information Commissioner Chief Anthony Enahoro.
Also the indiscriminate bombardment of civilians and civilian infrastructures like markets, hospitals, schools and refugee shelters caused a lot of deaths and outrage in the international community.
The Biafran government helpless in these situations, with regards to breaking or breaching the chocking blockade and the air raids, resorted to successfully telling the world what was happening to its populace, via its propaganda machine – one of the best in modern warfare and communications, and with pictures of dying children and Kwashiokor wasted children all the screens around the world and especially in the West, the moral outrage was huge and led to demonstrations and debates in Houses of Parliament in Europe and many debates on TV and the British Government was embarrassed by it all but remained resolute in its support for the Nigerian government, because it had a huge oil investment inter alia in Nigeria and couldn’t for all the dead Biafran children give this up.
But by 1969, though Biafra was reduced in size to about a 10th of its original size, it had gained military confidence and had a year earlier fought Nigeria to a stalemate, this is despite the Nigerian superiority in men and heavy weapons. In fact the Biafrans were now on the offensive and were gearing to kicking the Nigerian Army out of Biafra but for events which we will deal with later.
The funny thing about this article is that it didn’t tell the audience what new policy the Anglo American governments were planning or came up with, rather it said the British government was running against time – obviously to get Nigeria to win the war or get forced by its American allies to accept a compromise which might dampen her influence in a post war Nigeria
The Nigerian High Commissioner in the UK, Brig Ogundipe, defended the Nigerian government and denied any deliberate bombing of civilians and even said that collateral damages were part of war as was being seen in Vietnam – an obvious dig at the Americans.
The pictures you see are of a Nigerian airforce bombing raid in Umudike Umuahia, in today’s Abia State, the Biafran army and Red Cross are carrying the body of a dead Biafran baby as a Biafran Oil storage facility burns in the background and also you see Biafran civilians taking cover in a trench during a sortie.
Apologies for the quality of this report – all torn up newspaper but still survived 56 years later, and hence I can still bring it to you.
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