Go to AfricaBib home

Go to AfricaBib home Africana Periodical Literature Go to database home

bibliographic database
Line
Previous page New search

The free AfricaBib App for Android is available here

Periodical article Periodical article Leiden University catalogue Leiden University catalogue WorldCat catalogue WorldCat
Title:The history and legacy of the Asaba, Nigeria, massacres
Authors:Bird, S. ElizabethISNI
Ottanelli, FraserISNI
Year:2011
Periodical:African Studies Review (ISSN 1555-2462)
Volume:54
Issue:3
Pages:1-26
Language:English
Geographic term:Nigeria
Subjects:Nigerian-Biafran War
political violence
genocide
External link:http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/african_studies_review/v054/54.3.bird.pdf
Abstract:In early October 1967, four months into the Nigerian Civil War over the secession of the predominantly Igbo region east of the Niger River, Nigerian federal troops massacred hundreds in Asaba, a town in southeast Nigeria on the west bank of the Niger. While ethnically Igbo, Asaba was not part of Igbo-dominated Biafra. The killings at Asaba remained little known outside Igbo communities for many years, largely because they went unreported in the press at the time and subsequently received scant attention in histories of the Civil War. The present authors reconstruct the history of the events, primarily using survivor accounts in the absence of other primary documents. They suggest that a fuller accounting of the Asaba massacres not only fills a gap in the historical record, but also helps us understand more completely the subsequent development of the Civil War. In particular, the authors argue that the unsuccessful Biafran incursion west of the Niger, and the subsequent atrocities committed against civilians by federal troops, became a major factor in confirming the rhetoric of genocide that hardened Biafran resolve and disastrously prolonged the war. In addition, the reconstruction of this event contributes to scholarship on the impact of traumatic memory at the local and national levels. Bibliogr., notes, ref., sum. in English and French. [ASC Leiden abstract]
Views
Cover