Title: La Mort du Biafra!
Photographer(s): Gilles Caron
Writer(s): Françoise de Bonneville
Designer(s):
Publisher(s): Solar et Agence Gamma, Paris, France
Year:1968
Print run:
Language(s): French
Pages: 144
Size: 13 x 20 cm
Binding: Softcover
Edition:
Print: Lescaret, Paris, France
Nation(s) and year(s) of Protest: Nigeria,1968
ISBN:
From 1967 to 1970, ethnic, sectarian war ravaged Nigeria. When the Ibo and other peoples in the Eastern region seceded and formed the Republic of Biafra, the federal government, controlled by the Hausa, Fulani, and Yoruba peoples, responded with total war. Nigeria imposed a blockade and instituted starvation as a deliberate war strategy. In the first genocide since World War II, this policy starved to death more than one million Biafrans. Gilles Caron was among the first western photojournalists to cover the crisis. He made three trips to Biafra in April, July, and November 1968. Photographs from his April trip, published in the May 4, 1968 edition of Paris Match, were the first major reportage of the war in the Western Picture Press, putting this “ignored war” on the public agenda. This article analyzes Caron's coverage of the Biafran crisis. It argues that his humanistic vision helped persuade western readers that the Biafrans were not merely pitiable, but deserving of help; that his thorough approach detailed the multiple dimensions of this complex political and humanitarian crisis, and that several of his images of combat and famine remain among the best in the genre of war photography.