The Biafran War took place from July 1967 till January 1970, was an ethnic and political conflict caused by the attempted secession of the southeastern provinces of Nigeria as the self proclaimed Republic of Biafra.
The conflict was the result of economic, ethnic, cultural and religious tensions mainly between the Hausas of the north and the Igbo of the east of Nigeria.
Over 1 million civilians died as an effect of the war. The ensuing battles and well-publicized human suffering prompted international outrage and intervention.
Below are 5 things that happened as a result of the war and we pray that we never have to war in this country again.
1. Three Million People Died.
It is approximated that close to three million Nigerians lost their lives as a result of the Nigerian civil war with most of them have died from diseases and hunger. Despite the effort to reconstruct the nation, religious and ethnic tensions are still present in the politics of Nigeria.
- Economy Downturn
Majority of industrial plants stopped functioning which further led to mass unemployment and directly contributed to jobless youth who in turn started robbery and killing. Prices of goods automatically went up and people could not afford a lot of things like they used to.
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2. Millions of Children Became Homeless
Many adults were killed and most of these people were married and probably had children who had no inkling where and how to find their parents and as a result, they became orphans. Some people are still lost till date and no one knows if they are still alive or dead.
3. Dissatisfaction with life prompted riots and criminal activities
As soon as the riot ended, civilians became dissatisfied with the way of life at that time and people resulted to rioting while trying to pass a message to the government thereby causing more havoc to the already unstable country.
4. It destroyed the country’s international image
One other negative effect of the Civil War, which could not have been immediately quantified, was the way it destroyed the image of the country in the eyes of the international community.
There were hundreds of thousands of civilians that died through starvation and there were a lot of human rights violations, both on the side of the government and on the side of the Biafran army. This gave the nation of Nigeria a bad press.
