The Republic of Biafra existed in eastern Nigeria from May 30, 1967, to January 1970. The name was taken from the Bight of Biafra, the Atlantic bay in southern Nigeria. The secession of the Biafra region, due to the massacre of its people who lived in the northern part of the country, led to the Nigerian Civil War. The war lasted two and a half years, during which more than two milliom Biafran citizens died, mostly from starvation caused by the blockades of the region by the Nigerian government.
