At least 10 people were killed during protests by pro-Biafra campaigners as they marked the anniversary of the start of Nigeria's civil war, police said on Tuesday. Activists wanting a separate state for the Igbo people in the south-east were commemorating the 49th anniversary of the declaration of an independent Republic of Biafra on May 30, 1967.
The civil war that followed lasted until January 1970 and left more than one million people dead, many of them from starvation and disease. Police said officers opened fire because members of the Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) movement shot at security forces deployed to monitor the protests. But IPOB spokesman Anayo Chukwu-Okpara denied the claim and said at least 35 members of the group were killed in the commercial hub of Onitsha in Anambra state.
An Anambra police spokesman told AFP "five corpses were recovered" in Onitsha while in the capital of neighbouring Delta state, Asaba, the police said five protesters were killed. "We had to deploy our officers to ensure that the protest was peaceful but we were surprised that the people turned violent," said Delta police spokesman Charles Muka. There was also violence in the capitals of Imo, Ebonyi, Abia and Rivers state, he added.
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