Biafran Zionists Arrested For Declaring Independence

Members of the Biafran Zionist
Movement declared independence,
raised the Biafran flag and then
marched through the region's main
town, Enugu. More than one million people died
during the 1967-70 Biafran conflict -
mostly from hunger and disease. Most of those arrested were young
men but some were veterans of the
war. They were all remanded in custody. The BZM first gathered on Sunday to
mark the birthday of former Biafran
leader Chukwuemeka Ojukwu, who
died in November 2011 and was
buried in March. The BBC's Will Ross in Lagos says that
45 years after the Biafran flag was
first raised - an action which sparked
Nigeria's civil war - a small number of
separatists still keep their dream alive,
despite the threat of being charged with treason. Our correspondent
says the war has
been put back in the spotlight as the
renowned Nigerian writer Chinua
Achebe has just released his memoirs
of the conflict. He also notes that as the novel Half of
a Yellow Sun by the author
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie is being
made into a film, this traumatic period
of Nigeria's history is set to reach a
wider audience. The Biafran leaders were mostly from
the Igbo ethnic group, whose
members were targeted by rioters in
northern areas following a 1966
coup seen as being led by Igbo
officers.