Thread by @mazi_ikemba

According to Hugh McCullum, "Biafra is a history which Nigeria will NEVER successfully rewrite, nor silence of the world erase".
At d peak of Civil war, Biafra suffered a lot due to economic blockade and deployment of hunger by FGN as a weapon of war ...1/
#BiafraHeroesDay2020

...which affected d vulnerable; women & children. By August 1968, ICRC estimated dat about 6,000 persons starve to death in Biafra on daily basis mostly children. Kwashiorkor & marasmus had become evident amongst children in refugee camps..2/ @AfamDeluxo #ForgotenBiafranChildren

...the Nigerian government with the help of Egyptian pilots, made sure no relief materials made it to Uli or Uga runways, the only access to Biafra, by threatening to bomb any plane that attempted to land. The world looks on as genocide was happening in Biafra ...3/
@Umu_Igbo

Against this backdrop, Bishops James Moynagh of Calabar and Godfrey Okoye of Port Harcourt, presented a detailed memo to Pope on d Humanitarian catastrophe going on in Biafra, including conspiracy of silence by world press...4 #ForgottenBiafranChildren
@EmekaEzeibe @cchukudebelu

...The Vatican together with World Council of Churches (WCC) condemned the war describing it "as an inhumane & futile attempt at solving a crisis". They agreed to send in relief to starving Biafrans which was coordinated by Catholic Caritas...5/
@UmuIgboUnite @UmuIgboAlliance

...the airlift was unprecedented, & became the largest civilian airlift after Berlin airlift of 1948-9. It originates from Sao Tome, making Uli Airport 2nd busiest in Africa tho it lacked basic navigational gears, but mostly operational at night!...6/
#ForgottenBiafranChildren

...in no time the dangerous night flights also known as "Jesus Christ Airlines" which was sustaining Biafra started facing stiff threat from the Egyptian pilots who downed a DC-17 belonging to ICRC killing the crew & 3 relief workers. Uli was codenamed "Airstrip Annabelle" ...7/

..Due to grave public health situations in Biafra, as planes delivers the relief materials, they took over 8,500 sick children out to where they can get medical attention in Gabon, Ivory Coast, Sao Tome etc, while about 2million children starved to death....8/
@volqx__ #Biafrans

After the war, plans to reunite the airlifted children with their families began, but a lot died over there, many were too young to be identified, a good number of them were adopted by the elites in Gabon, Sao Tome etc FGN backed out of it citing the cost of repatriation 😭...9/

...Govt of Denmark footed the bills which made it possible for "some" of the kids to be reunited with their relatives. #EchezonaProject has been in forefront till date to identify & return all kids left behind both dead or alive to their rightful homes!
#BiafraHeroesDay2020 END

It is widely believed in Gabon that the current President Ali Bongo Ondimba (Odi na mba) was one of #ForgottenBiafranChildren adopted by the former President Omar Bongo.
#BiafraHeroesDay2020
@Ogechukwunovich

Please if you are in Enugu, join @cfmemories for this event coming up today! Stay blessed 🙏