Hopes Of Aid To Biafra

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31764, 22 August 1968, Page 15

Hopes Of Aid To Biafra

(N.Z.P. A.-Reuter—Copyright)

LAGOS, Aug. 21.

Bitter fighting raged near one of the last Biafran-held towns yesterday, bat hopes have been raised that food supplies may soon be on their way to the starving victims of the war.

Federal troops led by Colonel Benjamin Adekunle, nicknamed “The Black Scorpion” were reported to be battling against strong Ibo resistance in the sweltering bushland 15 miles from the

Biafran administrative centre of Aba. But reports from Lagos, Addis Ababa and London indicate that the Federal Government might agree to a shipment of supplies to ease the distress of civilians in Biafra.

For weeks, the Nigerian civil war talks in Addis Ababa have been deadlocked on the question of how to get aid to these people. As four Federal delegates left Lagos on their way back to Addis Ababa yesterday, it was reported from Lagos that the Federal Government might permit simultaneous land and air shipments into Biafra.

In the past, the Biafrans have refused land routes

through Federal territory and the Federal Government has refused to allow an airlift to a Biafran airstrip. The Ethiopian Emperor (Haile Selassie), bost to the Addis Ababa talks, has, however, proposed a “package deal,” details of which are not known, aimed at reaching agreement on this thorny issue.

A Federal spokesman in Addis Ababa said yesterday that the Federal delegates were returning with “new formulas on certain issues.” In London, informed sources said Nigeria was considering a change of heart and allowing supplies by air. They added that it was hoped a route could be agreed on within the next 48 hours. In Geneva, international experts are preparing plans to move substantial supplies of food into Federal-held distressed areas of Nigeria, while pressing Lagos for a neutral air corridor into Biafra itself. The International Red Cross Committee said last night it was trying to increase coordination among relief agencies to rush in supplies. Red Cross officials refused to go beyond a brief communique, but there is a strong belief in Geneva that other welfare agencies have agreed to co-ordinate their action and move as many supplies as possible into the affected areas by a series of unorthodox routes.

The committee, with other organisations, including the World Council of Churches, the Roman Catholic relief organisation, Caritas, and the United Nations Children’s Fund, spent the day reviewing relief activity at present carried out in Nigeria and Biafra, and then issued this statement:

‘“The situation in Biafranheld territory has been examined with a view to increasing the co-operation and co-ordination among relief agencies, in order to take without delay larger supplies to the famished women, children and aged.” The Red Cross said it' had chartered two 500-ton coastal vessels to move supplies from Lagos to Calabar. Two D.C.4 aircraft were also operating daily flights totalling some 30 tons from the Nigerian capital to Calabar and Enugu, both near the Biafran front, and two medical teams had left Geneva to join eight others already in Nigeria. In Biafra, two hospitals were being run by Red Cross teams. In Paris, the French Red Cross said it was getting aid shipments through to Biafra at an increasing rate by using

a route different from that used by the International Red Cross.

The organisation said in a communique that the first shipments of aid from the Red Cross and the French Committee Against Hunger had reached their destination, and more were being sent