1967 — The Biafran War Begins

On July 6, 1967, just five weeks after Biafra seceded, Nigerian federal forces attacked its positions, and Africa's most populous nation plunged into a bitter civil war. General Yakubu Gowon's federal government faced the Igbo-led Eastern Region under Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, after the 1966 coups and anti-Igbo pogroms shattered all trust.

The defining horror came later: a brutal blockade that starved an estimated one to three million people, mostly Igbo civilians. Biafra surrendered in January 1970. The war's haunting images of starving children reshaped global humanitarianism, changing how the world would answer famine and civilian suffering ever after that terrible war.