ORGANISATION:MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES

CREATION

Biafra
A child with kwashiorkor during the Nigerian Civil War.
During the Nigerian Civil War of 1967 to 1970, the Nigerian military formed a blockade around the nation's newly independent south-eastern region, Biafra. At this time, France was the only major country supportive of the Biafrans (the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union and the United States sided with the Nigerian government), and the conditions within the blockade were unknown to the world. A number of French doctors volunteered with the French Red Cross to work in hospitals and feeding centres in besieged Biafra. The Red Cross required volunteers to sign an agreement, which was seen by some[who?] as designed to maintain the organization's neutrality, whatever the circumstances.
After entering the country, the volunteers, in addition to Biafran health workers and hospitals, were subjected to attacks by the Nigerian army, and witnessed civilians being murdered and starved by the blockading forces. The doctors publicly criticized the Nigerian government and the Red Cross for their seemingly complicit behavior. These doctors concluded that a new aid organization was needed that would ignore political/religious boundaries and prioritize the welfare of victims.[8
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