Narrating the Nigerian Civil War Through Chilling Photos

War is what happens when language fails. 21st May 1968: John Downing-Tractor, a company rep, and William Blakeley, a marine manager, under guard by Nigerian Federal troops who took them hostage when they captured Port Harcourt during the Biafran War. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Express/Getty Images A starving Biafran family during the famine resulting from the Biafran War. (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images) Troops from the Nigerian Federal Army marching along a road after routing Biafran troops at Port Harcourt during the Biafran War. (Photo by Express Newspapers/Getty Images) A federal soldier swings a hand grenade by its release pin while guarding Ibo women prisoners and their children in Nigeria, during the Biafran War. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images) Nigerian troops entering Port Harcourt, after routing Biafran troops during the Biafran War. (Photo by Evening Standard/Getty Images) 19th May 1968: Nigerian Federal Troops in command of Port Harcourt after routing Biafran troops, during the Biafran War. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Express/Getty Images) (Original Caption) 8/7/1968-Biafra, Africa- This is military training Biafran style. These recruits go through the paces somewhere in Biafra. Nigerian spokesmen have been meeting with a delegation from secessionist Biafra in peace talks in Ethiopia in a bid to end Nigeria's 13-month-old civil war. Meanwhile starvation threatens many in besieged Biafra. View of a young male soldier from the Republic of Biafra crouching in a foxhole with a rifle during the Nigerian - Biafran civil war in Nigeria in August 1968. Members of the Igbo tribe rebelled in 1967 to demand a separate Republic of Biafra. The war and famine lasted until 1970, when the Biafran Republic forces surrendered to the nationalist government. (Photo by Rolls Press/Popperfoto/Getty Images) NIGERIA - 1968: Wedding of an officer of the Ibo ethnic group during the Biafra war in 1968 in Nigeria. (Photo by Fondation Gilles CARON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) Continue on next page Soldiers posing in front of a captured plane, during the Nigerian conflict with Biafran forces, Nigeria, 1968. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Express/Getty Images) Nigerian Army Commander Benjamin Adekunle with his troops, looking at a map of Port Harcourt during the conflict with Biafran forces, 19th May Nigeria, 1968. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Express/Getty Images) TO GO WITH AFP STORY IN FRENCH BY JOEL OLATUNDE AGOI (FILES) File picture showing refugees carrying their belongings as they flee the city of Aba,on their way to Umuahia, then the new capital of the Republic of Biafra,on 01 September 1968. A civil war opposing Biafra secessionist tribes fighting for independence and the federal troops killed between one and two million people from 1967 to 1970 in the Biafra region in south-eastern Nigeria. Nigerian high school students will study the Biafran war, an aspect of Nigerian history only in final year in school and two sessions. AFP PHOTO FRANCOIS MAZURE/FILES (B/W ONLY) (Photo credit should read FRANCOIS MAZURE/AFP/Getty Images) Nigerian leader General Yakubu Gowon (R) welcomes United Nations Secretary General U Thant (L) who flied into Lagos to hold talks over the continuing Biafran refugee crisis, on January 19, 1970 at Ikeja airport, during the Biafra war. A civil war opposing Biafra secessionist tribes fighting for independence and the federal troops killed between one and two milllion people, most from hunger and disease, from 1967 to 1970 in the Biafra region in south-eastern Nigeria. / AFP / - (Photo credit should read -/AFP/Getty Images) JULY: Colonel Emeka Ojukwu, the Biafran secession leader in front of a map during the Biafra war in Nigeria in July 1968. (Photo by Fondation Gilles CARON/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images) A dead body abandoned in a field, during the Nigerian conflict with Biafran forces, Nigeria, 1968. (Photo by Terry Fincher/Express/Getty Images) Photo credit - Getty Images