Download or read book Airlift to Biafra written by Tony Byrne and published by Columba Press (IE). This book was released on 1997 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the story of the airlift in 1969 of humanitarian aid to the innocent people in Biafra caught up in the Nigerian Civil War.
Download or read book Far Away in the Sky written by David L. Koren and published by David L Koren. This book was released on 2012-04-11 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some were paid. Some felt compelled by a duty to God. Some volunteered. Some died doing it. All flew on rickety old aircraft into a nighttime, wartime patch of African forest called Biafra. Far Away in the Sky gives the personal account of one of them, a young American volunteer who joined the largest international humanitarian relief airlift ever attempted. In 1968 millions of people, mostly children, were starving due to a military blockade of Biafra, the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. The World Council of Churches and Caritas International mounted a relief airlift. Flying at night to avoid Nigerian Migs, without radar or any modern navigational aids, landing amid bombs on a stretch of road in the rain forest, the old planes delivered thousands of tons of food and medicines. UNICEF recruited six former United States Peace Corps Volunteers, including the author, to help unload the planes. The former volunteers had served in Nigeria and were familiar with the area and the people. To David Koren the people of Biafra, his former students and fellow teachers, constituted his motive for joining the airlift. More than just a memoir of events, Far Away in the Sky promotes a discussion of international aid, of the balance between the grace of giving and the dignity of receiving aid, and the policies of governments toward intervention or non-intervention in humanitarian disasters. How do the lessons of Biafra apply to modern eruptions like Rwanda, Darfur, Libya, Syria and those yet to come? .
Download or read book Far Away in the Sky written by David L. Koren and published by Peace Corps Writers. This book was released on 2016-06-19 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Some were paid. Some felt compelled by a duty to God. Some volunteered. Some died doing it. All flew on rickety old aircraft into a nighttime, wartime patch of African forest called Biafra. Far Away in the Sky gives the personal account of one of them, a young American volunteer who joined the largest civilian humanitarian relief airlift ever attempted. In 1968 millions of people, mostly children, were starving due to a military blockade of Biafra, the former Eastern Region of Nigeria. The World Council of Churches and Caritas International mounted a relief airlift. Flying at night to avoid Nigerian MiGs, without radar or any modern navigational aids, landing amid bombs on a stretch of road in the rain forest, the old planes delivered thousands of tons of food and medicines. UNICEF recruited six former United States Peace Corps Volunteers, including the author, to help unload the planes. The former volunteers had served in Nigeria and were familiar with the area and the people. To David Koren the people of Biafra, his former students and fellow teachers, constituted his motive for joining the airlift. "Sometimes after unloading our planes in the dark, we evacuated children in the final stages of starvation. One boy, lying limp on a mat near the plane, looked up at me in the gloom and said, 'My father, why don't you speak to me? Don't you know me?' As he was about to pass into eternity he felt that no one - not his father, not God, no one - knew who he was. He survived. He grew up to be a successful adult. He has a name. Nearly a half a century later, because I wrote Far Away in the Sky, I learned his name. Now I want you to know his name." More than the story of a daring humanitarian rescue, this book reveals the astonishing future of the rescued children and their descendants.
Download or read book The Biafran Humanitarian Crisis 1967 1970 written by Arua Oko Omaka and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2016-09-30 with total page 205 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book focuses on the Biafran humanitarian crisis of 1967–1970 which generated a surge of human rights anxieties and attracted the attention of world humanitarian organizations. For the first time in recent history, different church groups and humanitarian activists around the world came together for the sole purpose of alleviating human suffering and saving lives regardless of theological differences, race, ethnic affiliation, nationality, and geographical distance. Despite their role in shaping the course and outcome of the conflict, most scholars of the Nigeria-Biafra War treat the humanitarian aspect of the war as a footnote, making it appear less important among other issues of interest in the conflict. Notable exceptions, however, include Joseph Thomson’s American Policy and African Famine, which focuses on American policy on the humanitarian aid, and Reverend Tony Byrne’s Airlift to Biafra. This study underlines that the international humanitarian aid largely contributed to the internationalization of the war. The efforts of the churches from thirty-three countries which remain virtually unexplored was not just the first of its kind in the developing world but also the largest civilian airlift in history. While the paucity of scholarship on the humanitarian aspect of the Biafra war could be attributed to the newness of this field of enquiry, the increase in conflicts in different parts of the world has just opened humanitarian aid studies as a new frontier in academic study. This book is a masterful example of scholarship in this newly emergent field.
Download or read book Shadows written by Michael I. Draper and published by . This book was released on 1999 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Describes fully for the first time the aviation aspects of the Nigerian Civil War, Biafra's motley mix of antiquated and modern aircraft was acquired through various dubious and clandestine channels. They faced the Nigerian Air Force. Largely Soviet-supplied and mercenary7-crewed MiG-17s. L-29 Delfins and Hyushin II-28s. Despite being lan-locked for most of the war Biafra held out, its only link to the outside world being an air bridge to a converted bush airstrip deep in the Biafran heartland. The strip supported an amazxing airlift of arms and food--the largest civilian relief airlift in history--which, for almost 18 months kept a nation alive. A special section traces the intgiguing web of British aircraft dealers trying to sell aircraft to the Biafran government--expressly against the wishes of Whitehall."--Dust cover
Download or read book Biafra Still Matters written by David Walter Myrick and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 103 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "This thesis is a historical analysis of the United States’ involvement in the Biafran Airlift. The Biafran Airlift is the second largest humanitarian airlift operation in history behind the Berlin Airlift. Participants flew over 5300 sorties and delivered over 60,000 tons of humanitarian supplies to starving civilians in the breakaway state of Biafra during the Nigerian Civil War. Unlike the Berlin Airlift, civilian organizations conducted the operation. They did so despite violent military opposition from the Federal Military Government of Nigeria. The United States decided to remain neutral while later supporting the humanitarian operation. Such shades of gray foreshadowed many of the dilemmas the US faces today in the international security environment. The United States Government was neck deep in an increasingly unpopular conflict in Vietnam and the Cold War but found time to conduct genuine strategic dialogue over the crisis. This thesis ultimately determines if the Biafran Airlift is a persuasive case for the United States to utilize contested humanitarian airlift as an instrument of national power. The pull of American liberal idealism manifested itself for the first time in the international media coverage that projected a civil war onto the global conscience. Domestic action groups pressured the White House and Congress for action. By synthesizing modern doctrine and policy for foreign humanitarian assistance, this thesis looks back at the Biafran Airlift and derives three implications (technical, environmental, political) for today’s policy makers. The significance of the Biafran Airlift is not lost on a Syria scenario today, but perhaps more important is the glimpse into how policy squares with action for today’s security environment flush with failed states and civil conflict."--Abstract.
Download or read book The Biafran War and Postcolonial Humanitarianism written by Lasse Heerten and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-28 with total page 413 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A global history of 'Biafra', providing a new explanation for the ascendance of humanitarianism in a postcolonial world.
Download or read book Biafra s War 1967 1970 written by Al J. Venter and published by Helion and Company. This book was released on 2016-02-19 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Almost half a century has passed since the Nigerian Civil War ended. But memories die hard, because a million or more people perished in that internecine struggle, the majority women and children, who were starved to death. Biafra’s war was modern Africa’s first extended conflict. It lasted almost three years and was based largely on ethnic, by inference, tribal grounds. It involved, on the one side, a largely Christian or animist southeastern quadrant of Nigeria which called itself Biafra, pitted militarily against the country’s more populous and preponderant Islamic north. These divisions – almost always brutal – persist. Not a week goes by without reports coming in of Christian communities or individuals persecuted by Islamic zealots. It was also a conflict that saw significant Cold War involvement: the Soviets (and Britain) siding and supplying Federal Nigeria with weapons, aircraft and expertise and several Western states – Portugal, South Africa and France especially – providing clandestine help to the rebel state. For that reason alone, this book is an important contribution towards understanding Nigeria’s ethnic divisions, which are no better today than they were then. Biafra was the first of a series of religious wars that threaten to engulf much of Africa. Similar conflicts have recently taken place in the Ivory Coast, Kenya, Southern Sudan, the Central African Republic, Senegal (Cassamance), both Congo Republics and elsewhere. As the war progressed, Biafra also attracted mercenary involvement, many of whom arriving from the Congo which had already seen much turmoil. Western pilots were hired by Lagos and they flew the first Soviet MiG-17 jet fighters to have played an active role in a ‘Western’ war. Al Venter spent time covering this struggle. He left the rebel enclave in December 1969, only weeks before it ended and claims the distinction of being the only foreign correspondent to have been rocketed by both sides: first by Biafra’s tiny Swedish-built Minicon fighter planes while he was on a ship lying at anchor in Warri harbour and thereafter, by MiG jets flown by mercenaries. Among his colleagues inside the beleaguered territory were the celebrated Italian photographer Romano Cagnoni as well as Frederick Forsyth who originally reported for the BBC and then resigned because of the partisan, pro-Nigerian stance taken by Whitehall. He briefly shared quarters with French photographer Giles Caron who was later killed in Cambodia. Prior to that Venter had been working for John Holt in Lagos. It is interesting that his office at the time was at Ikeja International Airport (Murtala Muhammed today) where the second Nigerian army mutiny was plotted and from where it was launched. From this perspective he had a proverbial ‘ringside seat’ of the tribal divisions that followed as hostilities escalated. Venter took numerous photos while on this West African assignment, both in Nigeria while he was based there and later in Biafra itself. Others come from various sources, including some from the same mercenary pilots who originally targeted him from the air.
Download or read book The International Politics of the Nigerian Civil War 1967 1970 written by John J. Stremlau and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2015-03-08 with total page 447 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Biafra's declaration of independence on May 30, 1967, precipitated a civil war with important implications for the territorial integrity of all newly independent African states. Allegations of genocide commanded the world's attention and brought forth unprecedented humanitarian intervention. This full account of the internationalization of that conflict draws on hitherto confidential records and more than two hundred interviews with foreign policymakers, including Yakubu Gowon and C. Odumegwu Ojukwu. Originally published in 1977. The Princeton Legacy Library uses the latest print-on-demand technology to again make available previously out-of-print books from the distinguished backlist of Princeton University Press. These editions preserve the original texts of these important books while presenting them in durable paperback and hardcover editions. The goal of the Princeton Legacy Library is to vastly increase access to the rich scholarly heritage found in the thousands of books published by Princeton University Press since its founding in 1905.
Download or read book The Nordchurchaid Airlift to Biafra 1968 1970 written by Hugh G. Lloyd and published by Copenhagen : 1150 Köbenhavn K., Folkekirkens Nödhjælp, Eksp.: Köbmagergade 26. This book was released on 1972 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Beskriver bl.a. flyveoperationerne og organisationen under lufttransporten (Luftbroen) med forsyninger til de nødlidende i Biafra
Download or read book A History of the Republic of Biafra written by Samuel Fury Childs Daly and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2020-08-27 with total page 287 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Republic of Biafra lasted for less than three years, but the war over its secession would contort Nigeria for decades to come. Samuel Fury Childs Daly examines the history of the Nigerian Civil War and its aftermath from an uncommon vantage point – the courtroom. Wartime Biafra was glutted with firearms, wracked by famine, and administered by a government that buckled under the weight of the conflict. In these dangerous conditions, many people survived by engaging in fraud, extortion, and armed violence. When the fighting ended in 1970, these survival tactics endured, even though Biafra itself disappeared from the map. Based on research using an original archive of legal records and oral histories, Daly catalogues how people navigated conditions of extreme hardship on the war front, and shows how the conditions of the Nigerian Civil War paved the way for the country's long experience of crime that was to follow.
Download or read book In the Name of the Fathers written by Ndaeyo Uko and published by . This book was released on 2014 with total page 506 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the Name of the Fathers is an account of three men who breached a total blockade enforced by two superpowers, the United kingdom and Russia and their military client, Nigeria, to deliver food-and arms-to the rebel republic of Biafra, where millions of children were starving. The daring nocturnal airlift known as the Biafra Airlift or Jesus Christ Airlines and pulled off under heavy gunfire by an Irish priest, an American gunrunner and a Swedish nobleman, kept Biafra and millions of its children alive until 1970 when Nigeria finally defeated Biafra after 30 months of war. Jesus Christ Airlines remains one of the longest and biggest civilian airlifts in history-in "tonnage proportions ... second only to the 1948-49 Berlin Airlift" (Draper, Shadows: Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria 4). My goal in reconstructing the Biafra airlift is to explore the nature and impact (as well as the side effects) of that crucial but illegal-and unconventional-humanitarian intervention. The literary form I have adopted for the dissemination of my findings is the documentary narrative, which uses a combination of historical and journalistic research with the imaginative techniques of fiction to make accounts of the past accessible to a global audience. In my exegesis, In the Name of the Fathers: A Documentary Narrative of the Biafra Airlift, I use literary, historiographical and new journalistic theories to examine the documentary narrative as a literary form that aspires to the aesthetic grace of fiction on one hand, and the authenticity of historical record, on the other. I also engage with the methodological and ethical principles that underpin the use of techniques of fiction in the reconstruction of historical events.
Download or read book The Brutality of Nations written by Dan Jacobs and published by Alfred A. Knopf. This book was released on 1987 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Sandals in the Snow written by Rose Ihedigbo and published by Tate Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-09 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rose and three young children walked onto American soil wearing Sandals in the Snow, an abrupt transition from Nigeria to New York. This fascinating memoir recounts the amazing journey of an African family searching for the American dream. Rose Ihedigbo draws readers into the account beginning in two small villages in Nigeria, through snowstorms, and into life in New York and Massachusetts. This engaging story sweeps the readers in, allowing them to live vicariously through the experiences. Sandals in the Snow integrates the author's native language, Igbo, with English and utilizes African phrases and simple translations. Rose poetically describes her story and the faithfulness of God that was impressed on her through every experience. Discover hope for your own struggle in this dramatic testimony to what can be achieved through commitment, faith, and education. This memoir provides readers an understanding of religion in African villages and a personal account of the Biafra War. You will be encouraged at this portrait of human resilience and triumph over adversities.
Download or read book The Nordchurchaid Airlift to Biafra 1868 1970 written by Hugh G. Lloyd and published by . This book was released on 1972 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Biafra written by Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu and published by . This book was released on 1969 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:
Download or read book Biafra Revisited written by Herbert Ekwe-Ekwe and published by . This book was released on 2006 with total page 196 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This text demonstrates that the Biafran War, 1967-1970, was the second phase of the Igbo genocide, following the initial massacre of 100,000 Igbo across the principal towns and cities of northern Nigeria. It shows how the slaughter was sanctioned and organised by the State, with its leading institutions - the military, police, religious, media and academia - implicated therein.
