This article records tradition as it has been passed down and reported. Its sources are not yet part of the atlas's verified catalogue.
The Nigerian Civil War was fought after the mostly Igbo, predominantly Christian Eastern Region of Nigeria declared independence as the Republic of Biafra in May 1967, following the January 1966 coup, the July 1966 counter-coup, and communal violence against Igbo civilians in northern Nigeria that killed thousands and drove hundreds of thousands of refugees east. The Federal Military Government of Nigeria, backed militarily by the United Kingdom and the Soviet Union, fought to prevent the secession under General Yakubu Gowon; the secessionist Republic of Biafra, under Lieutenant Colonel Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu, drew its chief international backing from France, alongside a wide international humanitarian relief effort mounted amid the wartime blockade.
Biafra's collapse, driven substantially by a federal blockade that produced mass starvation given wide international attention through images of famine among Biafran children, ended the war in January 1970. Gowon's government pursued a stated policy of reconciliation, summarized as no victor, no vanquished, and formal reintegration of the former Eastern Region.