FORMER BIAFRAN LEADER HELD

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32349, 15 July 1970, Page 17

FORMER BIAFRAN LEADER HELD

(19 Z P A -Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, July 14. A letter which claims that a former Biafran leader, LieutenantColonel Philip Effiong, is being held in a Nigerian prison was made public on a television programme in London last night. In the programme, "Pano-

rama,” by the British Broadcasting Corporation, the letter was said to be written by Colonel Effiong to his daughters. His two teen-age daughters read it over the programme. Nigerian leaders have previously denied reports that former Biafran leaders, promised protection under an amnesty, had been detained Colonel Effiong was the last leader of the former secessionist territory. He signed Biafra’s surrender to Nigeria, ending the two years and a half-long war on last January 15. Also on the programme were interviews with 14 missionaries who claimed that food and medicine were

being withheld from starving Ibo people. The programme's report said that it was the opinion of all relief workers interviewed that starvation in some parts of the former secessionist territory was as bad today as it was during the war and would reach disaster proportions unless food, medicines and money were rushed to those most in need. The programme said that Colonel Effiong’s letter was written to his two daughters. Rosaline, aged 17 and Mercy, aged 15. The girls are understood to be in scboo’ in the Irish Republic. Colonel Effiong said that he was imprisoned on April 21 and that he was in Port Harcourt

He told his daughters: “I take it as a necessary if t rather painful phase of the i tragic drama of Nigeria. It • will pass away.” i Asked if they had been - surprised by the arrest of I their father, Mercy replied • that she was not. Father Raymond Kennedy. , who played a leading role in ; relief organisation during . the war, said that there were l three main factors in the ; present plight of the Ibo . people. One was indifference: . “People in Lagos don’t know i and don't care” about what I is happening. Another fac- . tor was inefficiency, but it : was impossible to exclude malice bn the part of a few.