The Biafran Airlift 1967-1970

The Biafran Airlift was an international humanitarian relief effort that transported food and medicine to Biafra during the 1967-70 secession war from Nigeria (Nigerian Civil War). It was the largest civilian airlift, and after the Berlin airlift of 1948-49 the largest non-combatant airlift of any kind, ever carried out. The airlift was largely a series of joint efforts by Protestant and Catholic church groups, and other non-governmental organizations (NGO)s, operating civilian and military aircraft with volunteer (mostly) civilian crews and support personnel. Several national governments also supported the effort, mostly behind the scenes. This sustained joint effort, which lasted one and a half times as long as its Berlin predecessor, is estimated to have saved more than a million lives

This late 1960s photograph depicts a field that had been converted into a make-shift airport in Calabar, Nigeria, where relief efforts were aided by a helicopter team. These helicopters could move one ton of crated, dry fish quickly to refugee camps in the Nigerian-Biafran war zone. In 1967, the CDC was asked to assist the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in its disease control and death prevention efforts during the Nigerian-Biafran war. A large number of relief camps were established for purposes of nutrition assessment, and feeding operations for the local villagers around the war zone.