Five weeks after its secession from Nigeria, the breakaway Republic of Biafra is attacked by Nigerian government forces.
In 1960, Nigeria gained independence from Britain. The new country was formed from a colonial amalgamation of different regions with different majority ethnic groups, including the Yoruba, Igbo and Hausa-Fulani. Six years later, a set of back-to-back military coups installed an Igbo leader, who was then removed in a counter-coup organized largely by officers from the Hausa-Fulani-dominated North.
In the chaos that followed, thousands of Igbos living in the North were massacred, prompting tens of thousands of Igbos to flee to the east, where their people were the dominant ethnic group. The Igbos doubted that Nigeria’s oppressive military government would allow them to develop, or even survive, so on May 30, 1967, Lieutenant Colonel Odumegwu Ojukwu and other non-Igbo representatives of the area established the Republic of Biafra, comprising several states of Nigeria.
After diplomatic efforts by Nigeria failed to reunite the country, war between Nigeria and Biafra broke out in July 1967. Ojukwu’s forces made some initial advances, but Nigeria’s superior military strength gradually reduced Biafran territory. The state lost its oil fields–its main source of revenue–and without the funds to import food, an estimated one million of its civilians died as a result of severe malnutrition. On January 11, 1970, Nigerian forces captured the provincial capital of Owerri, one of the last Biafran strongholds, and Ojukwu was forced to flee to the Ivory Coast. Four days later, Biafra surrendered to Nigeria.