User blog:ANIMALGAMINGXzero/January 15th 1970

Today on the 15th of January the Nigerian civil war ended it happened in one of the most populated nations in the world and is one of the bloodiest examples of using starvation as a weapon.The war started on the 6th of July 1967 for the next two and a half years it just became another proxy war of the cold war the odd thing is the soviet union and the united states both supported Nigeria in this while Portugal Spain Tanzania Rhodesia and south Africa supported the self declared nation of Biafra while Nigeria had help from France Israel soviet union UK, Saudi Arabia, Bulgaria Syria Algeria and the U.S. Egypt was the only nation that sent military support.But anyways back to the war Biafra was rich in oil and more western influenced than the rest of nation they also had more of the Igbo ethnic group Nigeria refused to let Biafra go due to the oil the united kingdom not wanting another decolonization to go wrong sent weapons to support Nigeria.Nigeria wanting to weaken Biafra to bring the war to a quick end started a blockade they did not stop oil immediately.Allowing Biafra to gain wealth and allies but once oil was part of the blockade it weakened Biafra food was also blocked starving the people photos of the starving children helped get Biafra international support from the people but this did not help the blockade and Western nations supporting Nigeria did its job and on January 15th 1970 Biafra surrendered and was annexed into Nigeria both sides committed genocides 2,000,000 people starved because the Nigerian blockade and once Biafra was defeated murders and genocide of the people who were mostly part of the Igbo ethnic group continued.The military deaths of the war tallied 100,000. 2 to 4.5 million were displaced and between a million and three million refugees.