Showing posts with label Biafran war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Biafran war. Show all posts

Saturday, 24 December 2016

Biafran Airlift: Israel’s Secret Mission to Save Lives

In 1968, thanks to the relatively recent invention of broadcast television, the world was horrified by images of young Biafran children starving en masse during the Nigerian civil war. The international call to action was overwhelming. U.S. President Lyndon Johnson told the State Department, “Get those…babies off my TV set.” As the largest non-combatant airlift in history, the Biafran operation is estimated to have saved over one million lives. What most of the world does not know is that Israeli pilots and ground crews played a critical role in this historic airlift.

Biafra: A People Betrayed

By Kurt Vonnegut
From Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons, 1979


THERE is a "Kingdom of Biafra" on some old maps which were made by early white explorers of the west coast of Africa. Nobody is now sure what that kingdom was, what its laws and arts and tools were like. No tales survive of the kings and queens.