You're listening to witness history on the BBC World Service with me, Paul Waters.

And now let's go back to the early days of the Nigerian Civil War.

In 1966, Nigeria's government was overthrown in a coup, led mainly by soldiers from the

influential Ebo minority.

A counter-coup followed and soon Ebo people around Nigeria were facing attacks and persecution,

leading to a flow of Ebo refugees to their home region in the southeast of the country.

There, the governor was Imika Ujuku.

Wanton and premeditated acts of destruction against this region and its peoples have compelled

them to re-appraise their attitudes.

We have reached a stage where I am unalteredly convinced that to save the very semblance

of Nigeria as one country, we must drift a little apart.

When Nigeria's military leaders would not agree to loosen links with the Scytheson region,

in May 1967, Ujuku declared it to be an independent state called Biafra.

The Biafra!

13-year-old Patricia Ingoze Ibigue was the daughter of an Ebo father.

She lived in Lagos, the then capital of Nigeria, and she knew to keep quiet about her

Ebo identity.

We were aware of the danger, because you were told, kill us talk, kills.

When you walked past dead bodies in the street, I didn't want to look at the faces, because

maybe somebody I know.

In Lagos, where the Yoruba people were the predominant ethnic group, Ebo people were

targets, and sometimes it was people Patricia knew who disappeared.

...