Nigerian Civil War

===Humanitarian crisis===
{{Further|Blockade of Biafra|Biafran airlift}}

[[File:Starved girl.jpg|200px|left|thumb|A child suffering the effects of [[kwashiorkor]], a disease brought on due to a severe dietary protein deficiency. Pictures of the famine caused by the Nigerian blockade garnered worldwide sympathy for the Biafrans. It was regarded in the Western press as the genocide of two million people, half of them children.]]

The September massacres and subsequent Igbo withdrawal from northern Nigeria was the basis for the initial human rights petition to the UN to end genocide and provided a historical link to Biafran claims of genocide during the Nigerian civil war.<ref name="auto2">{{cite journal|last1=McNeil|first1=Brian|title='And starvation is the grim reaper': the American Committee to Keep Biafra Alive and the genocide question during the Nigerian civil war, 1968–70|journal=Journal of Genocide Research|date=July 2014|volume=16|issue=2–3|pages=317–336|doi=10.1080/14623528.2014.936723|s2cid=70911056}}</ref> Awareness of a mounting crisis rose in 1968. Information spread especially through religious networks, beginning with alerts from missionaries. It did not escape the notice of worldwide Christian organisations that the Biafrans were Christian and the northern Nigerians controlling the federal government were Muslim.<ref>Heerten & Moses, "The Nigeria–Biafra War" (2014), p. 175. "In the first half of 1968, ever more religious groups and humanitarian organisations were alerted to the event, due in large measure to the presence of western missionaries. These religious ties were conduits for the transnational networks through which the conflict would be turned into an object of international humanitarian concern. For many Christian clerics and laypeople, the war seemed to be a cosmic drama fought between a vulnerable Christian Biafra and a northern Muslim-dominated federal Nigeria."</ref> Among these Christian efforts were the organisation Joint Church Aid and [[Caritas Internationalis|Caritas]], the latter aligned with various international Catholic aid groups.<ref>{{cite report|url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/r/pa/ho/frus/nixon/e5/54647.htm|title=The Biafran Relief Problem|publisher=[[Central Intelligence Agency]]|date=29 January 1969|access-date=1 March 2021|location=[[Langley, Virginia|Langley, VA]]}}</ref> The famine was a result of the blockade that the Nigerian government had imposed on the Eastern region in the months leading up to secession.<ref name="auto2"/> [[Frederick Forsyth]], then a journalist in Nigeria and later a successful novelist, observed that the main problem was [[kwashiorkor]], a protein deficiency. Prior to the civil war, the main source of dietary protein was [[stockfish|dried fish]] imported from [[Norway]], which was supplemented by local hogs, chicken and eggs. The blockade prevented imports, and local protein supplies were quickly depleted: "The national diet was now almost 100% [[starch]]."<ref>Forsyth, Frederick. The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue. NY: Putnam, p. 176</ref>

Many volunteer bodies organised the [[Biafran airlift]] which provided blockade-breaking relief flights into Biafra, carrying food, medicines, and sometimes (according to some claims) weapons.<ref name="Shadows">''Shadows : Airlift and Airwar in Biafra and Nigeria 1967–1970'', by Michael I. Draper ({{ISBN|1-902109-63-5}})</ref> More common was the claim that the arms-carrying aircraft would closely shadow aid aircraft, making it more difficult to distinguish between aid aircraft and military supply aircraft.<ref name="Shadows"/>

The American Community to Keep Biafra Alive stood apart from other organisations by quickly creating a broad strategy for pressuring the American government into taking a more active role in facilitating relief. Former [[Peace Corps]] volunteers who had recently returned from Nigeria and college students founded the American Committee in July 1968. The Peace Corps volunteers stationed in the Eastern Region developed strong friendships and identified as Igbo which prompted them to help the Eastern Region.<ref name="auto2"/>

One of the characters assisting Count Carl Gustav von Rosen was [[Lynn Garrison]], an ex-[[RCAF]] fighter pilot. He introduced the Count to a Canadian method of dropping bagged supplies to remote areas in Canada without losing the contents. He showed how one sack of food could be placed inside a larger sack before the supply drop. When the package hit the ground the inner sack would rupture while the outer one kept the contents intact. With this method many tons of food were dropped to many Biafrans who would otherwise have died of starvation.<ref>Farran, Roy. "Calgarian active in Biafran conflict." ''North Hill News,'' 19 October 1968.</ref>

[[Bernard Kouchner]] was one of a number of French doctors who volunteered with the [[French Red Cross]] to work in hospitals and feeding centres in besieged Biafra. The Red Cross required volunteers to sign an agreement, which was seen by some (like Kouchner and his supporters) as being similar to a [[gag order]], that was designed to maintain the organisation's neutrality, whatever the circumstances. Kouchner and the other French doctors signed this agreement.<ref>{{Cite web|title=July 6: Nightfall at dawn New Telegraph Online New Telegraph|url=https://www.newtelegraphng.com/july-6-nightfall-dawn/|last=Correspondents|website=New Telegraph|language=en-US|access-date=2020-05-29}}{{Dead link|date=October 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>{{citation needed|date=January 2020}}

After entering the country, the volunteers, in addition to Biafran health workers and hospitals, were subjected to attacks by the Nigerian army, and witnessed civilians being murdered and starved by the blockading forces. Kouchner also witnessed these events, particularly the huge number of starving children, and when he returned to France, he publicly criticised the Nigerian government and the Red Cross for their seemingly complicit behaviour. With the help of other French doctors, Kouchner put Biafra in the media spotlight and called for an international response to the situation. These doctors, led by Kouchner, concluded that a new aid organisation was needed that would ignore political / religious boundaries and prioritise the welfare of victims. They formed the ''Comité de Lutte contre le Génocide au Biafra'', which in 1971 became ''[[Médecins Sans Frontières]]'' (Doctors Without Borders).<ref name="hih">Bortolotti, Dan (2004). ''Hope in Hell: Inside the World of Doctors Without Borders'', Firefly Books. {{ISBN|1-55297-865-6}}.</ref><ref>Heerten & Moses, "The Nigeria–Biafra War" (2014), p. 177.</ref>

The crisis brought about a large increase in prominence and funding of [[non-governmental organisations]] (NGOs).<ref>Heerten & Moses, "The Nigeria–Biafra War" (2014), p. 177. "The Biafran crisis was also connected to wider changes in the relief sector. In particular, it resulted in a massive spending increase through state funds and public donations, leading to the growth and proliferation of NGOs."</ref><ref>O'Sullivan, "Humanitarian Encounters" (2014), p. 299. "The Biafran humanitarian crisis holds a critical place in the history of non-government organisations (NGOs). It prompted the creation of new agencies, like Africa Concern, and thrust existing ones, like Oxfam, into a spotlight they have left only rarely since. As part of a wider 'NGO moment', it focused public and official attention on the role of non-state actors and accelerated the emergency of an internationalised, professionalised aid industry that took centre stage in the mid 1980s."</ref>