...I cannot remember exactly how long I spent at Owerrinta, but by the time we got back to Omoba, trekking for almost a whole day again, there now more soldiers in the town than there were before we left. They would usually parade about shouting and singing.
My mother was very upset when I arrived sick. They took care of my head, and I eventually got better and joined my other siblings and our friends to go into the forest to stay away from the now very constant air-raids.
But on Sundays, we attended church services with either my grandmother or my grandfather
One such Sunday, as we were returning from service from my grandmother’s St. Barnabas Anglican church hear the market, we met a crowd near the market surrounding some people.
We went close, to take a look.
At the centre of the crowd were four men, seated on the ground, with their hands tied behind their backs. Besides them on the ground were severed arms and legs, certainly not theirs.
Some people in the said they were Nigerian soldiers, captured from the war front. They were talking of cooking and eating the severed limbs!
They were eventually led away, towards our former house that had become headquarters for the army.
The next Sunday, as we came back from church, we saw a lot of people heading towards the place where the men were taken. We followed.
We arrived at a portion of land near where the army headquarters was, this was not far away from our former house. This portion of land is around a road that linked Umuokegwu road and Umu-Agu road. The army had a dump for some sort of crude oil close to this place.
A crowd surrounded a portion of the land. In the middle, there was a trench, some lifeless bodies were inside. There was another man standing blindfolded close to one end of the trench. There was a soldier behind him. Suddenly, the soldier lifted a metal object he was carrying and hit the blindfolded man at the back of his head, some of the people around shouted as if in victory, blood gushed out as he fell into the trench.
Some of the people were saying that the soldiers were rationing their bullets, so, they did not have enough to just shoot the men.
People started living the place soon afterwards.
I was horrified!
I felt very sorry for the man. The sight and the thought disturbed me for years.
This is one of the reasons for which I feel bad that none of the key actors in that war were ever tried for war crimes.
Not long after that, my sister Meg brought my eldest brother (Big Daddy) home. He could not walk. They said he was shot in the leg at the war front, and they were going to cut off his injured leg because there was no medicine to treat him, and there were too many injured people at the war front.
They also said he was very lucky that my sister Meg was around there that time, and smuggled him home.
They used a native doctor to treat him. He was always at home, hidden.
My sister Meg soon left to go back to go back to the front. She came back some time later, to say that the Biafran troops had recaptured Owerri, and that she had been posted there...
----BIAFRA:LEST WE FORGET!
2 comments:
Nigeria's past: Very touching and unfortunate too cuz it still haunts us ... looking at you today, one would hardly believe you saw all these at that tender age. Can't wait to read the rest of the story!!!
Thanks Dammy. That's my real point, no child should be made to see things like that any more in Nigeria.
At least, we can start where we are at.
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