Nigerian Civil War

The Nigerian Civil War, also known as the Biafran War, was fought from 1967 to 1970 after the predominantly Igbo southeastern region of Nigeria declared independence as the Republic of Biafra under Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, following a period of ethnic violence and a military coup and countercoup that had left the Igbo population fearing for its safety within Nigeria. The federal Nigerian military government under General Yakubu Gowon launched a military campaign to crush the secession, and the resulting war, combined with a federal blockade of Biafran territory, produced a severe famine that killed large numbers of civilians and drew international humanitarian attention and relief efforts to the besieged region. Biafran resistance gradually collapsed under sustained federal military pressure and the effects of the blockade, and the war ended in January 1970 with Biafra's surrender and its reincorporation into a reunified Nigeria under a policy Gowon described as no victor, no vanquished. The conflict remains one of the deadliest civil wars in post-colonial African history.