TY - JOUR PY - 2016// TI - Victor's justice: atrocities in postwar Nigeria JO - Medicine, conflict and survival A1 - Omaka, Arua Oko SP - 228 EP - 246 VL - 32 IS - 3 N2 - The Nigerian Government's declaration of 'no victor, no vanquished' after the capitulation of Biafra on 12 January 1970, was applauded as the right step towards reconciliation and transition from war to peace. Despite this declaration and assurance of amnesty, the Nigerian Government and its soldiers still engaged in acts that amounted to retributive justice. They starved and killed innocent Biafran civilians, looted their property and raped their women. Surprisingly, these postwar atrocities committed against former Biafrans have been largely ignored in the historiography of the Nigeria-Biafra War. This paper seeks to fill the gap in the war literature by interrogating Nigerian Government's attitude towards the postwar humanitarian crisis and crimes against humanity in former Biafra. The paper argues that former Biafrans were not fully reintegrated into the Nigerian society and that the Nigerian Government deliberately neglected them to die in large numbers, thereby making it difficult for the war victims to recover from the hardships of the conflict.

Language: en

LA - en SN - 1362-3699 UR - http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13623699.2016.1260351 ID - ref1 ER -