Biafrans Claim Aboh Taken

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31976, 1 May 1969, Page 15

Biafrans Claim Aboh Taken

(N.Z.PJi.-Reuter—Copyright) LAGOS, April 30. Biafran forces have crossed the River Niger into Mid-West Nigeria and captured the town of Aboh, near some of the richest oil-producing country in West Africa, according to Radio Biafra.

The Nigerian High Command had no comment to make on the claim, but had earlier admitted that a Bia-

fran attack had been made on the Mid-West river town of Asaba, which it was said, was driven off by Federal troops holding the Biafran town of Onitsha, across the Niger.

Aboh, a river bank settlement that in the nineteenth century was a major trading port, is 50 miles south of Asaba and 38 miles east of the Ughelli-Warri area, the headquarters of many oil firms.

If the Biafrans’ claim is true, this is their third attempt to break into the MidWest They overran the 14.000-square-mile state a month after the beginning of

the civil war in August, 1967. They were driven out last October. By attacking Asaba and Aboh, the Biafrans, fresh from retaking Owerri, in Central Biafra, are obviously trying to put pressure to the west of the Annabelle airstrip at Uli-Ihiala, which is the principal terminal for the arms and relief airlift into the encircled Biafran enclave in the east Aboh is directly under the holding pattern for relief planes waiting to land at Annabelle. Asaba, on the west bank of the Niger about 300 miles east of Lagos, is about 25 miles north of the airstrip. Civilians have begun to trickle back into Owerri, the war-scarred road • junction town recaptured by Biafran troops last week after eight months of Federal occupation. Most of them say that their homes have been destroyed and that they are trying to build new ones from what they can find. Units are at work round the clock cleaning up the debris and trying to make Owerri habitable again.