NIGERIAN TROOPS STORM OWERRI

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31785, 16 September 1968, Page 15

NIGERIAN TROOPS STORM OWERRI

Reports Of Stubborn Biafran Resistance (N.Z P. A.-Reuter—Copyright) PORT HARCOURT (Nigeria), September 15. Federal Nigerian troops are reported to have stormed and entered the outskirts of Owerri, one of the two large towns remaining in Biafran hands. Owerri’s population has soared from its normal 26,000 to several hundred thousand, the mass of refugees including British and American wives and families of Ibo citizens. There is obviously stubborn Biafran resistance, judging by the talk of the Federal soldiers, who believe the town cannot be taken immediately.

One soldier, returning from the front, wounded, reported that the Biafrans are using their most experienced troops to hold Owerri.

Federal soldiers back from the fighting round Aba, say however, the Biafran troops are so poorly armed that only one in four carries' a gun. “The others wave sticks, beat drums and shout as they make their last stand,” they say.

The other urban centre still in Biafran hands is Umuahia, 30 miles north of Aba. About 100 sick Biafran children were flown out of the area last night to an undisclosed country for medical treatment, according to sources dose to the Biafran Red Cross. The children were suffering from serious attacks of kwashiokor, a deadly sickness caused by protein deficiency.

The International Red Cross resumed its night “mercy” flights to Biafra last night, airlifting 34 tons to the ObiUturu airstrip. There had been no flights the previous night because of the “general situation.” Areas Recaptured In Umuahia, military sources said Lieutenant-Col-onel Odumegwu Ojukwu, the Biafran leader, personally directed a Biafran counteroffensive which recaptured areas round Oguta. Federal forces had made a seaborne invasion of the town on Wednesday night and threatened Biafra’s operational airport at Kli, about eight miles away.

Colonel Ojukwu has visited several war fronts since the

fighting began, but Oguta was the first area in which he had personally taken control of military operations. The Biafran leader was cheered and carried on the shoulders of his aides when he returned last night after Biafran forces had recaptured areas round the town. Workers’ Call In Lagos, Nigerian workers yesterday called on the Federal Government to break diplomatic relations with France and to seize French assets in Nigeria if President de Gaulle continued to support breakaway Biafra. About 200 Left-wing workers staged an eight-mlle march from the Lagos mainland to the French Embassy on Victoria Island to protest against General de Gaulle’s statement on Biafra last Monday.

Mounted riot police cordoned off the Embassy, where slogan-waving demonstrators burned a French Tricolour which they had carried with them. The marchers delivered a note to the Embassy’s first secretary (Mr Pierre Vermel), calling on President de Gaulle to stop his “provocative interference” in the Nigerian crisis.

Missing After Fire.—The two sons of the American singer, Roy Orbison, are missing and presumed dead after a fire which destroyed their lakeside home near Hendersonville, Tennessee. The authorities have identified the missing children as Roy Duane Orbison, aged 11, and Tony Orbison, aged six. A third son, Wesley, aged three, escaped without injury.—Hendersonville, September 15.