OF AIRLIFT TO BIAFRA: RETHINKING EXTERNAL HUMANITARIAN INTERVENTION DURING THE NIGERIA-BIAFRA WAR, 1967-1970

Abstract

It has been established that deprivation and starvation were deliberate weapons of warfare in the hands of Nigeria against the defunct Peoples’ Republic of Biafra and her citizens during the thirty-month war that ravaged the entire Republic. Images of malnourished Biafra children posed a challenge to the international community and ultimately, at some point, became a matter of international concern. Consequently, notable international non-governmental organisations swung into action to provide succor to the Biafran civilians who were at the verge of extinction. Some notable Christian bodies like the Catholic Caritas and the World Council of Churches took charge to supply the starved Biafran children with the basic nutritional needs. Also, the International Committee of Red Cross, and doctors of several nationalities did not only provide the desperately needed health and nutritional demands of the people, they also tried to expose the humanitarian travails of Biafra to a seemingly indifferent international community. The experts noticed spiking cases of kwashiorkor and other diseases that are related to malnutrition, especially on the children. The worsening humanitarian situation compelled the non-governmental organisations to embark on very daring but dangerous missions of supplying basic human needs to a federal government blockaded Biafran enclave. The stories of the uncommon bravery of most of the international non-governmental organisations to provide the desperately needed succour to the dying Biafran non-belligerents continue to inspire popular literature of the war. There appears to be unending debates on the objective of the aid providers as different authors and commentators either argue that the aid missions were basically humanitarian or outrightly sinister. This study sets out to re-interrogate the aid operations and the politicking that appears to shroud it with the hope to provide new perspectives to some hitherto popular or unpopular positions. The study employs the historical method of research to examine the role of various non-governmental organisations in their attempts to alleviate the humanitarian problems of Biafra during the war. The study intends to choose the most relevant and insightful data from ever expanding sources, to dispassionately explicate the efforts, challenges and impact of the various humanitarian bodies that assisted Biafra during the war.