Movement for the Actualisation of the Sovereign State of Biafra, MASSOB, has said that the Igbo were still feeling the pains of the civil war, which lasted for about three years.
MASSOB stated that it was wrong for President Muhammadu Buhari to say that the Nigerian troops were soft on Biafrans, claiming that five million people of Igbo extraction were killed during the civil war (1967-1970).
The National Director of Information of MASSOB, Mr Sunday Okereafor, in a statement on Sunday, explained that while many Igbo people, including children, were killed, the entire Biafran people were subjected to hunger.
Okereafor recalled how Frederick Forsyth, a British pilot, who later became a journalist, captured what happened during the war and maintained that the federal troops were brutal against the Biafrans during the civil war.
Describing the civil war as genocide against the Igbo, Okereafor stated that the genocide in Rwanda was child’s play compared to the massacre during the Biafran war.
“We are still feeling the pains of the civil war. I lost my sister; Precious. Properties were also left as abandoned properties. Yakubu Gowon, who was the Head of State then, was not soft on Biafrans.
“He (Gowon) once said that he had no regret over the civil war. Over five million Igbo were killed by the Nigerian troops. We faced hunger and kwashiorkor. Children and civilians were attacked.
“It is surprising that Gowon is now telling the Igbo that they should forgive and forget about the past. During the war, two million children were killed; the attacks were in the markets. It is not true that the federal troops were soft on us. The Rwandan genocide is a child’s play to Biafran genocide.
“Frederick Forsyth, a former pilot, who later became a journalist, captured what happened during the war. How could they say that the troops were soft on us? The pains are there and we can never forget the pains,” Okereafor said.
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