Emergency Lift To Biafrans Agreed On

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31776, 5 September 1968, Page 17

Emergency Lift To Biafrans Agreed On

(N.Z.P.A. -Reuter—Copyright) LAGOS, September 3. The Nigerian Federal Government today agreed to an International Red Cross emergency airlift of relief supplies to starving Biafra—but only for 10 days.

The compromise agreement was announced in Lagos after talks between the Federal leader, MajorGeneral Yakubu Gowon, and a Red Cross envoy, Dr August Lindt, who arrived today.

The Red Cross planned to start flying in planes with relief supplies from the Spanish island of Fernando Poo, off the Nigerian coast. They will land at the Bia-fran-controlled airstrip of Uli-Ihiala, in jungle country about 35 miles north-west of Owerri, one of the last towns still in Biafran hands.

At first, Lagos warned the Red Cross not to attempt the airlift But today, it agreed to allow the planes in for 10 days beginning next Thursday. The agreement came as Nigerian forces continued their all-out offensive against Biafra.

The Nigerian Army commander annnounced in Port Harcourt, one of the springboards of the offensive, that fighting was going on in the streets of Aba, Biafra’s last remaining main administrative centre.

In Port Harcourt itself, a firing squad executed a 23-year-old Federal Army lieutenant who was found guilty by a court-martial of shooting dead an unarmed Biafran prisoner l '- of-war.

The shooting incident last week was filmed by a British television crew and shown on Britain’s television screens last night. The flights to Uli-Ihiala were “an emergency measure” and would be in daylight, the Federal statement said.

But it was still recognised that they would be inadequate and that shipments by land and water mercy corridors were essential for the thousands of Ibo war victims in the region’s blockaded interior.

The statement said that the International Red Cross “will therefore immediately use its influence and take steps,” to make it possible to ship vitally

needed relief material through a land corridor, south of the captured Biafran capital of Enugu to Awgu or other agreed corridors. > The Federal Nigerian frontline company commander who was executed by a firing squad for gunning down an unarmed Biafran prisoner of war ■last Tuesday, was trussed to a tree in front of a deserted missionary school and shot dead by a four-man firing squad.

The man was found guilty by a field court-martial of “an offence against the Nigerian Army code of conduct . . . i.e. shooting an unarmed rebel soldier.”

The court-martial was presided over by the loqal Federal commander. Colonel “Black Scorpion” Benjamin Adekunle. who signed the death sentence.

Colonel Adekunle, who is commander of one sector of the current push against the remnants of Biafran territory, told reporters before the execution: “If a soldier

surrenders, he must not be shot.”

Colonel Godwin Aly, Chief of Staff of the Third Federal Division, said that after some sporadic firing last Tuesday at Ogwe, near Aba, the man was found by Federal forces in the bush wearing civilian clothes. He was unarmed. The man claimed to be a civilian, but when ordered to stand to attention by the company commander, he did so “very smartly.”

The commander then fired about 10 shots from his carbine, killing the prisoner. The colonel said that the Federal Command was extremely distressed at the Incident “because it is a very rare occurrence.” The television film was "unfair because it gave the impression that this sort of thing goes on all the time.” The lieutenant showed no emotion as he was prepared for execution in a field of daisies outside the mission school.

The firing squad seemed far more nervous. The men apparently had not been informed of the execution until they reached the field. When one of the soldiers faltered, the colonel in charge whipped him.