RED CROSS PLANS TO DEFY NIGERIAN RULING

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31775, 4 September 1968, Page 15

RED CROSS PLANS TO DEFY NIGERIAN RULING

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LAGOS, September 3. A crisis loomed today between the Nigerian Federal Government and the International Red Cross Committee, which plans to fly relief supplies into Biafra despite Federal opposition.

Nigeria’s Military Government has said that there might be “grave incidents” if the Red Cross went ahead with its plan to fly five planes from the island of Fernando Poo into Biafra today.

The Government said the plan to use the Biafran airstrip at Obilagu was illegal.

The Federal authorities have previously threatened to shoot down planes which fly into Biafra without their permission.

During the wrangle with Biafra’s ruler, LieutenantColonel Odumegwu Ojukwu, over methods of delivering relief supplies to the starving victims of the 16-month-old civil war, 3500 tons of supplies have built up in Fernando Poo.

Planes provided by Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland and Switzerland were reported ready today to fly from the Spanish island with the first loads of dried milk, high protein foods and other supplies. Unauthorised flights must

risk fire from Federal antiaircraft batteries that surround Biafra and from the Federal air force, which has MiGl7 jet fighters and Czechoslovak fighter bombers at its disposal. Last night’s official statement repeated Federal in-

sistence on a land corridor for relief supplies and said the Red Cross “can advance the humanitarian ends we all desire by appealing to rebel leaders to change their present attitude of being insulting and intransigent.” The statement said Obilagu was in the direct line of the advancing Federal troops “and its use for relief opera-, tions will be precarious and short lived.”

Observers in Lagos say that the Federal Government is anxious to avoid the internationalisation of the war

which might follow the Red Cross flights. Nigeria’s military ruler, Major-General Yakubu Gowon, has set himself a target of about three weeks to bring Biafra to its knees militarily to shut off further international discussion, the observers say.

They say the Government is worried at the prospect of discussion of Nigeria’s civil war in the United Nations, the Organisation of African Unity and in Parliamentary sessions in Europe—all during the next few months.